Bottled Up
by RisenAngel17
Summary: After graduating from Elementary school, Helga finds out that she's moving to Vermont and spends the next five years being torment to the point of her wanting to kill herself. But when her parents announce their divorce, Helga decides it's time to go back to the place she felt most at home. Rated T for slight adult language-only slight
1. Chapter 1

IMPORTANT NOTE: this is my fanfic, so I decided against including the main subplot of The Jungle Movie (or the movie that got canned, because one movie did poorly at the box office :p) because I'm sure hundreds of people do that already. So, in this fanfic, Arnold never comes to terms with his feelings for Helga or finds his parents.

Summary: After the class of P.S. 118 graduate from Elementary school, Helga's dad announces he's having a new business open in the southern part of Vermont, forcing them to leave Hillwood. Helga moves to her new town and starts going to her new school, where she is bullied for looking 'ugly' until Helga feels if she doesn't change her looks, she'll be beaten to where she has to go to the hospital, even killed. Five years later, Helga's parents get divorced and Helga decides to return to the one place she ever really felt at home.

Chapter 1

The class of P.S. 118 crowded in the elementary school gym for the graduating party of the elementary school graduates. There was loud music with a snack table along with a punch bowl.

Helga didn't really want to go to the party-but she knew she couldn't leave without at least saying goodbye to Phoebe.

Helga remembered how two weeks ago, her father announced they were moving to a small town in Vermont so they could be there for the opening of her dad's new store. Helga had been meaning to tell Phoebe, even everybody from her class-but whenever she wanted to bring it up, she couldn't find the words.

Helga wasn't sure how she felt about moving-part of her told her she should be happy to get away from a bunch of morons, especially Harold. But deep down, Helga knew she'd miss Hillwood, especially Phoebe. But then, Helga thought of the person she'd miss the most-

"Hang on a sec, Phoebs," Helga told Phoebe. "I gotta use the jon,"

"Okay, but you might want to hurry back-I hear they're going to play the Macarena in a few minutes,"

Which gave Helga an excuse to spend even more time in the jon; and sure enough, when Helga left the gym, she could hear the Macarena playing in the gym and kids laughing trying to keep up. Helga quickly jumped around the corner and pulled out her gold locket.

"Oh, Arnold," Helga began. "Whatever am I going to do without you? How could I possibly go a day without seeing your sunshine smiling face at least once? How could I go without the sweet water of your deep blue eyes? The wonderful essence you bring with you every day is like air to me-how does one live without air? How will my lungs survive without your air to breathe? Alas, my darling, I will have to live without these things, for I may never see you again. And unfortunately, I may never tell you how I actually feel about you, my darling Arnold. I must wonder if I will be able to hold the tears back when I bid adieu to you, my wonderful adoring Arnold," Helga's monologue ended with a small tear rolling down her cheek.

At this point, Helga wasn't surprised when she heard deep asthmatic breathing not too far behind her. Without even bothering to look, Helga raised her fist and whacked Brainy in the face, satisfying Helga with the sound of breaking glasses.

Helga couldn't hear the Macarena anymore and decided it was safe to return to the gym. Helga headed back, nearly running into Mr. Simmons.

"Oh, hey teach," Helga said.

"Helga, I'm so glad I caught you!"

"You're not gonna tell me I can't graduate, are you?"

"No, no…I heard from your mother that your family is moving to Vermont,"

Helga wasn't surprised that Mr. Simmons had heard-Mr. Simmons was probably the most caring teacher in the world, though Helga would be the last person to admit that.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay," Mr. Simmons said.

"Why wouldn't I be okay?" Helga sneered. "I'll be getting away from these losers,"

"I know it's not easy to move, Helga," Mr. Simmons said. "But if you want, you can come to me with anything-"

"What?"

Helga was a little shocked to see Phoebe in the hallway and had obviously heard everything Mr. Simmons said.

"Uh…I better go," Mr. Simmons quickly escaped and Helga was left alone with Phoebe.

"You're…you're moving?" Phoebe asked.

"Yeah…some podunk town in Vermont. Guess I'll be starting middle school without you, huh?"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Helga shrugged. "I dunno, I guess…I guess I just never got around to it…"

Helga didn't want to look at Phoebe but had to when she heard a sniffle-Phoebe was crying.

"Whoa," Helga said. "Geez, Phoebs, come on, it's not the end of the world,"

"Who am I going to start middle school with?" Phoebe said sniffling. "Who's gonna protect me when Harold starts bullying me?"

"Harold's just a big mush ball Phoebs, and you know it,"

That didn't help-in fact, Phoebe went from sniffling to plain crying. Helga hugged Phoebe awkwardly, not sure how to react.

"It's not like I won't write," Helga said. "I'll...I'll still write to you, and if anybody gives you a hard time, I'll come straight back to kick some butt,"

"Really, Helga?" Phoebe asked, still sniffling.

Helga wasn't sure if she really could, but she didn't want Phoebe to feel bad. "Of course,"

"When are you leaving?"

"…tomorrow,"

"So soon?"

"Yeah…"

"What time are you leaving?"

"Around eight in the morning, I think…at least, that's what Miriam said…"

"Okay, well, why don't we-"

"Helga!" Miriam was walking around the corner. "Come on, Helga, we have to leave,"

"Just give me a few more minutes, Miriam, crimeny…"

"Alright, your father and I will be waiting in the car, try not to be too long okay?"

"Sure, whatever," Helga mumbled.

Helga said goodbye to Phoebe and weaved her way through the gym to get to the parking lot. Helga opened the door to almost be knocked over by Rhonda.

"Watch it, will ya?" Helga snapped.

"Uh, sorry Helga," Rhonda ran inside and Helga headed to her dads car when she saw Arnold heading into the gym.

"Hey Helga," Arnold said.

"Whatever, football head," Helga mumbled. Helga thought about saying bye to Arnold, but she wasn't sure if she could muster up the words…or guts.

"I heard you're moving…"

"Word gets around fast, doesn't it? How'd you know? I just barely told Phoebe,"

"Phoebe told Rhonda and Sid-Rhonda just told me,"

So that was why Rhonda was in such a hurry-must be going to tell everyone she knew that the horrid Helga was leaving.

"Huh…well, yeah, I'm moving to some stupid town in Vermont…"

"Well…I hope everything goes okay at your new school,"

Helga wasn't shocked that Arnold was being nice-Arnold was a nice guy, almost annoyingly nice. "Yeah…hey, listen, Arnold,"

Arnold raised an eyebrow "Yeah?"

"Look…I've been needing to tell you something…for a long time…and I just wanted to say it before I left…"

"Okay…what is it?"

"Arnold…look, there's no easy way to say this, so I'm just gonna say it, okay?"

"Um…okay,"

"Arnold," Helga finally managed to look into Arnold's eyes. "I…I…I've-"

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! "HELGA, GET IN THE CAR ALREADY!"

Helga almost screamed in frustration-she was ready to tell him…why did her father have to honk his horn at THAT moment?

"Cool it pops!" Helga yelled. "I'm coming already!"

Helga turned back to Arnold. "I, uh, I guess I better go," she said and turned around.  
"What was it you wanted to tell me?" Arnold asked.

"Uh…I forgot…guess it wasn't that important…"

"You sure?" Arnold asked.

"Course I'm sure, why wouldn't I be?"

"Well…if you say so,"

Helga began to head to her car. "See you later,"

"Helga?"

Helga turned to face Arnold one more time.

"I don't know if I'll ever see you again, so…goodbye," At goodbye, Arnold held out his hand.

Helga almost wanted to laugh, but she almost wanted to cry too. Taking a deep breath, Helga took Arnolds hand. "Goodbye, Arnold,"

They let go and Helga got in her dad's car and P.S. 118 was soon nothing but a distant light in the background.

"Goodbye Arnold," Helga mumbled. "I hope…one day…we can see each other again,"

3 months later…

"Mom?" Helga called. "MOOOOOOM!"

Naturally, there was no answer.

"MOOOOOM? MIRIAM?"

Helga's mom finally pulled her head out of the cabinet. "Oh, Helga…what is it?"

"Where's my lunch box, I'm late,"

"Oh, it's um….oh, gosh, where did I put that thing? It's um…it's…."

"Sometime today, Miriam…" Helga growled.

"Oh, now I remember," Miriam went over to the microwave and pulled out her lunch box. "I was heating it up for you,"

"I don't eat it until noon, Miriam, and you gotta take the beans out of the can before you heat them,"

"Oh, no wonder it wasn't heating up…silly me…"

Helga went to the door and didn't even bother to let her parents know she was leaving-they didn't care anyway. Miriam was too busy being brain dead about something and Bob was too busy on the phone yelling at someone. Helga knew this would happen, so last night, she got out her new schools address. After asking a few people, she managed to find it.

Helga entered the school and the smell of lemon cleaner nearly choked her. The porcelain white hallways gleamed with a shine that made Helga's head hurt. Not to Helga's surprise, kids were shuffling through the doors and were making their ways to class. Almost all of the kids were staring at her, making Helga even more uncomfortable.

Helga approached the front desk. "Hey," she said. The woman behind the front desk ignored her.

"HEY!" Helga yelled.

"Yes, sir, what can I help you with?" the secretary at the front desk scrutinized at Helga.

"I'm a girl," Helga snapped-Helga knew she was boyish and knew the unibrow tended to throw people off, but crimeny, wasn't her pink bow a statement that she was a girl? And she had traded her pink dress in for a pair of loose jeans and a pink shirt-hello? PINK!

"Yes, what can I do for you?" The secretary said.

"I'm new here and I need my schedule-name's Helga G. Pataki,"

"Oh, yes, Pataki," she picked up the paper with Helga's schedule and handed it to her. "Maybe you'd like to go to the bathroom…freshen up a bit?"

"Freshen up a bit?" Helga repeated. "What am I, a fruit salad? Buzz off," Helga didn't wait for the secretary to say anything and left. Looking at her schedule, she saw she was locker 118; after maneuvering around a little, she finally found her locker, entered her locker combination and put her book bag into her locker. After seeing what classes she had in the morning, she grabbed what textbooks she needed and headed to her first class, Social Studies.

She walked into the classroom and discovered it was as white as the hallways-only instead of smelling like lemon cleaner, it smelled of a gazillion perfumes, obviously worn by the girls in the classroom. The minute Helga entered the room, the room fell dead silent.

It took Helga a few minutes to discover what the problem was-she stuck out like a sore thumb. While she had a pink shirt and jeans, all of the girls were wearing pretty dresses and tight jeans with sequined shoes and the tops were either sequined or had fabric flowers on the shoulders and the guys wore polo t-shirts and jeans without one hole in sight. Helga's hair still stuck up in two straight pigtails that had always done that since she had grown hair while the other girls hair had obviously taken hours to do-even some of the guys had gel in their hair. These people could only be described as one word-perfect. And non perfect Helga knew she wasn't going to make one friend here.

Helga ignored the stares and made her way to a desk-just as she was about to sit down, someone threw their books on the chair.

"This is my seat," a girl with flowing blonde hair stood in Helga's way.

Helga did what she would do if this were in the middle school in Hillwood-she picked up the books and threw them across the room. "Not anymore," she said and sat down.

The girl glared and left without another word-which kind of unnerved Helga-she somehow felt she was going to regret doing that.

"Everyone, please take your seats," the teacher of the class stood at the edge-even the teachers were perfect. This teacher had glasses, but somehow made them look cool. She wore a lilac purple blouse ironed to perfection and a floral skirt with high heels. "We have a new student-will Helga please stand up?"

Helga stood up and none of the kids bothered to turn their heads-probably because they already knew who the new kid was.

"Oh my," the teacher said, looking at Helga.

"Take a picture," Helga snapped. "It'll last longer,"

The teacher glared at Helga. "Now, class, why don't we all start by saying our name and one thing about ourselves?"

The teacher would call on a name and the person would say their name and what they liked. Helga dreaded having her name called, but soon the teacher said "Now, why don't we start with a worksheet? Please pass this back," The teacher had skipped Helga! And Helga had a feeling it was on purpose.

_Should I say something? _Helga thought.

The stack of papers was soon waved in front of Helga's nose. Helga reached to grab it when the boy in front of her let go of the papers and they drifted onto the floor. "Oops," the boy said and the whole class snickered.

Helga glared at the boy before picking up the papers, grabbed one for herself and passed the rest back before sitting down.

SQUISH!

Helga stood up to see what was on her seat and found gum on the butt of her jeans.

"Oh, my, what a bubblegum butt the ugly girl has," The girl who sat behind Helga had put her used gum on her seat!

Helga looked at the teacher-Mr. Simmons would have definitely said something on how wrong that behavior was. But the teacher wasn't saying anything.

She was laughing with the rest of the class.

. . .

Helga went to the bathroom, thanking everything that was Holy that school was finally over. Helga had a gazillion fries thrown at her during lunch and Helga finally got pissed, found the boy who was doing it and socked him in the jaw and ran out before anybody would say anything. At her last class, someone drew a crude drawing of Helga's face with a pig snout and the word UGLY written next to it.

Helga hid in the stall and pulled out her locket of Arnold. "Oh, Arnold," she said softly. "If only you were here-you would never let such beasts do this to me…" Helga felt a strong wave of missing her friends crash over her body; at her old school, she was the tough kid and no one messed with her; yeah, sometimes Harold did, but one threaten of Old Betsy and The Five Avengers and Harold shut up.

Helga sighed and stood up and tried to leave the stall-but the door was stuck.

"What the…" Helga tried a few more times, but couldn't get it open.

"Did the ugly girl enjoy her piss?" someone was outside of the stall and obviously blocked Helga in.

"Listen to me, whoever you are-you let me out of this stupid stall right now, or I will yank your intestines out and use it as a noose for your hanging!"

"Oh, I'm so scared," another voice said and the room burst with monkey laughing.

"I'll show you scared when-" Helga's tirade was interrupted by a splash of cold water on her head.

"What the heck?" Helga screeched.

"You reek of ugly," one girl said. "We have to clean you!"

With that, another bucket of ice cold water was dumped on Helga. "You rotten little prissy pants, when I get out of here-"

"Someone needs to wash their potty mouth out!" With that, another bucket of cold water was dumped on Helga.

Helga threw herself at the door. "LET ME OUT OF HERE, YOU-"

"We can't until you stop smelling so bad!" Another bucket of water was dumped on Helga. "Just wait, we're filling up the fifth right now!"

"You rotten little brats, LET ME OUT!" Helga screamed.

"Here it comes!"

"DON'T YOU DARE!"

They ignored Helga and another bucket of water was dumped on Helga. "LET ME OUT OF HERE BEFORE I KILL YOU ALL!"

"Filling up the sixth one!"

"STOP IT!" Helga yelled.

"Here it is-wanna beg for it?"

"You'll be begging for your life when I get out of here!"

"Eh, good enough for me! Ready, and-" another bucket of water soaked Helga and the cold water was beginning to feel numb.

"Filling up the seventh!"

That was enough-Helga finally slid out of the gape under the stall and wormed her way out. The girls screamed and ran out and Helga was chasing them.

"Ms. Pataki!" Helga's science teacher was in the hallway and the girls hid behind her.

"Get out of my way; I'm going to kill them!"

"You will do no such thing!" the teacher said.

"Then at least give them detention or something-I had six buckets of water dumped on me!"

"It's obvious to me they were provoked! You socked Amber's boyfriend in the jaw at lunch today!"

"I wouldn't have if he hadn't thrown French fries at me!" Helga yelled.

"Maybe instead of hurting other students, you should get a makeover instead," the teacher said that. That was the teacher who said those words-

Helga gaped at them; what was wrong with these people? They made fun of her for being 'ugly'? They put gum on her seats, threw French fries at her and dumped buckets of water on her and no one bats an eye?

Helga ran out of the school with the decision that she was never going back.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Helga stomped her way home; she wasn't sad or even hurt by what those people did.

She was MAD.

Every person who looked at her funny, Helga wouldn't ask questions-she would just go up to them and sock them in the stomach and then leave without another word.

Helga got home and slammed the door to her new suburban house shut. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. But instead, she stomped her way upstairs and headed for her new bedroom.

"Olga, quit making all that racket!"

"I'm HELGA, Bob!" Helga yelled and slammed the door to her room. Most of her stuff had been unpacked, but there were two things missing from her new room. One was the small pink notebook Helga kept-not her diary, but an address book with all her old friends addresses so she could write. When Helga asked her parents if they'd seen it, Bob had apparently thrown it away because he thought it was trash.

The second thing that wrenched at Helga was the entire box that contained the contents for Helga's 'Arnold' shrine. That, Miriam had thought was junk and threw away as well. The only thing Helga had left was her diary that had only one more blank page.

Helga opened her diary and decided to do one more update.

_They think they've seen the last of me? Forget it-tomorrow, they're all going to get their dues. Or my name isn't Helga G. Pataki!_

. . .

The second day of school, Helga got there early and poured canola oil on everyone's seat; then she egged the teacher's lounge, and when people started throwing French fries at her, she started a food fight. When she went to the bathroom and saw the girls waiting for Helga, she was prepared-she had a bottle of ketchup and a bottle of mustard and squirted them all with it and ran off before the teacher could catch her. Helga left the school that day feeling like she had won.

But the minute Helga got out of school grounds, she was swarmed. They threw water balloons at her, some filled with rocks in them. Then they started egging her until she felt like a pan of scrambled eggs. Everywhere Helga turned, there was a perfect taunting face throwing a water balloon or an egg. It wasn't long before Helga felt something long and sticky being squirted at her-ketchup and mustard. Finally, someone brought three buckets full of baking powder and dumped it on her.

Don't think Helga didn't try to fight back; she tried to punch every person she could see, but there were over thirty students there-whenever Helga would attack someone, five or six students would push her away. Helga tried to escape, but they circled her. Helga threatened them until her voice was raw, but they only laughed and threw more objects at her. Finally, Helga gave up and let them do what they wanted to her-eventually, the students ran out of ammo, got bored and left. Just as they were leaving, one small girl approached her with a bottle of apple juice.

"You should dress and act prettier," the girl said. "Trust me, the minute you do, they stop,"

"What are you doing, Alyssa?" One of the girls asked.

The girl named Alyssa answered by opening her bottle of apple juice and pouring it on Helga's egg, baking powder, ketchup, and mustard covered head.

"Sorry," Alyssa said. "I had to do that," Alyssa then turned and walked away and the students left.

For a few minutes, Helga sat there-she didn't know how to react. She'd been bullied before, but never this bad. It seemed every kid at her new school was now against her.

But Helga wasn't going down without a fight.

The third day, Helga filled an entire hallways worth of lockers with green jell-o (classic), then dug through more lockers and tore out all the pages of the textbooks she could find. Then, while the lunch lady wasn't looking, Helga spiked the chili for the chili cheese dogs with extra spicy hot sauce. And she ran home without stopping so the students couldn't catch her.

But then, they TP'd Helga's house and wrote 'UGLY' in shaving cream on every window of the house.

The fourth day, Helga poured pink paint in all the hallways.

The kids killed a cat and left it on her front doorstep-what the cat had on its body was too horrible and sick to be written.

After seeing the dead cat, Helga knew things were ugly.

The fifth day, Helga made a dummy of a dead cat and rigged it to fly down on students every time the door would open.

But then, five boys found Helga and beat her up until she vomited from being kicked in the stomach so much.

The fifth day, Helga came home with a black eye and severely bruised legs.

The sixth day, Helga came home with a cut on her upper lip and fire extinguisher residue staining her clothes.

The seventh day was her shirt had been ripped to shreds.

The eighth day her shoes had been ripped off her feet and stolen.

The ninth day she had mud pies with rocks in the middle thrown at her.

Two weeks went by, every day getting worse and worse. Helga wasn't sure how long she was going to take it. Everything Helga would do, the students would retaliate ten times more horribly. But then, the kicker hit and hit hard.

Somehow, the student girls had gotten a hold of the graduating picture of all of her friends from Hillwood and ripped it to shreds.

Helga didn't want to live anymore.

That day Helga came home with a severely hurt wrist from having a boy 'accidentally' drop a box on her hand-she had gone to the nurse who suspected it was sprained and told her to go to the emergency room to have it x-rayed. But when Helga got home and told her mom, her mom just mumbled and continued to watch TV. Helga told her dad, but he just continued exercising and told her 'later'.

Helga was tired; she was tired of being alone and it had only been two weeks. In Hillwood, Helga might have been able to deal with the bullies because her friends were there; but now?

Helga went into the bathroom and locked the door tight-she saw her dads raiser on the bathroom sink and picked it up to inspect it. It was brand new and was only used once. Helga rinsed the raiser on the sink and braced herself for the pain she was going to feel-but she told herself just to do it and get it over with.

But then, Helga noticed her moms straightening iron.

_ "You should dress and act prettier," the girl said. "Trust me, the minute you do, they stop,"_

…would they really stop bullying Helga if she were to dress and act pretty?

Helga knew there was only one way to find out.

That night, Helga didn't sleep-she used whatever makeup she could find. She remembered seeing Olga doing her hair and makeup- Helga tried to mimic her so she would look just like Olga. She straightened her two stick up pig tails until they were perfectly straight down-then she used the iron to curl her hair and make it wavy looking-then she took her pink bow, unraveled the ribbon and tied it as a headband. Then, Helga started makeup-she applied her mother's foundation, blush and a little mascara. Finally, Helga took care of her unibrow-Helga remembered how she had done this same thing once for Rhonda's party when she was nine. But Rhonda explained to her that it didn't really make Helga look pretty, it just made her look like she was trying too hard. So, Helga didn't apply eye shadow or lipstick-she just used plain mascara and wore lip gloss.

By the time Helga was done with her self-made makeover, it was already dawn-Helga didn't dare lie down to sleep for fear of messing up her hair that took her hours to do. Helga looked at herself in the mirror and didn't see Helga-she saw a complete stranger.

_"I liked the old Helga better-at least she was honest!" _Phoebe's voice rang inside Helga's head. But then Helga moved her wrist and winced at the pain she felt.

There was being honest, and then there was lying on the ground beaten to a pulp. This may be Helga's chance-Helga didn't care about fitting in; she didn't want to fit in with these horrible perfect people. What she did want was to be able to come home without worrying about her safety. Helga felt like she had to do this or she may wind up in the hospital.

Or even the morgue.

Helga remembered how Miriam had given her a bunch of Olga's clothes that Helga stuffed in the back of her closet-Helga dug out the box and found a skin tight black shirt with the words 'CUTIE' written in pink sparkles and a bright pink skirt that reached her mid-thighs. Helga dug out an old pair of flats with silver sparkles that belonged to Olga as well and put them on.

Helga was ready for her so called 'debut'.

Helga went downstairs and saw her mom passed out on the couch-probably more of her 'smoothies'. Helga's dad was still asleep, so Helga made her own lunch-she wanted it to be 'cool' but not like she was trying too hard. She finally made her a cucumber sandwich (even though Helga hated cucumbers) and cut the sandwich diagonally so it would look nice. After digging around, Helga found a small bottle of orange juice and to complete Helga's lunch, she added a granola bar. It was the first time Helga had a lunch that actually looked complete.

And then, Helga made her way to school.

. . .

Helga hesitantly entered the halls of her new school-at first, she thought there would be kids wanting to attack her.

Not one kid even looked at her.

Helga went to her locker, grabbed what she needed and went to class, the whole time, looking over her shoulder.

Not one kid even gave her the time of day.

Well, it was a start.

Helga entered the classroom-for a split second, the classroom went quiet, but then the students went back to just talking. Helga hesitantly sat down.

"Hey there," the girl who had poured apple juice on Helga was back.

"Hi," Helga said.

"I'm Alyssa," she said. "I know it's hard, but trust me-these kids are relentless-they wouldn't stop unless you did what they want,"

"Which is act and look pretty," Helga said.

"Yeah," she said. "Most of these kids are from Manhattan and their parents are rich- doctors and fashion designers and such,"

"Huh," Helga said.

"They single out anyone who doesn't meet their expectations-but the minute you reach it, they stop. It's a miracle,"

"They're really that shallow?" Helga asked.

"Unfortunately, yes…just think of it like this-just seven more years until you're free from this and you can act however you want,"

…SEVEN YEARS?

. . .

The rest of the year went by without a single problem-now that Helga wasn't 'ugly' anymore; the students stopped being mean to her. They didn't completely accept her, but at least they weren't dumping buckets of water on her anymore.

Helga's only real friend was Alyssa-when she went over to Alyssa's one time, she discovered that Alyssa was actually a lot like Helga-she would burp and just act like it was normal and said she had named her fists as well-Mr. Fingers and The Justice Knuckle League. Alyssa showed Helga a few of her pictures from her old school that showed that Alyssa was actually a tough girl like Helga-she would always wear a hat backwards and would have her dark brown hair completely frizzy.

"What made you change?" Helga asked.

Alyssa pulled her pants leg up to show her the scar that went up her leg. "They pushed me off a one-story scaffolding. I landed on a plank and the wood broke my leg-the scar was from where they had to operate…my parents tried to sue the school, but this school isn't like other public schools. It's powerful-they have everyone on their side,"

The rest of the school year went by and summer came-the girl who had dumped water on Helga-Amber-actually invited Helga to her beach house for the summer. When they arrived, Helga was unpacking her stuff when Amber found Helga's gold locket of Arnold.

"Who's that?"

"Huh? Oh, that's not mine…must be my mom's. I think he's my cousin," the lie flew out of Helga's mouth before she knew what she was doing.

"Just throw it away then-there's a dumpster outside," Amber told her.

"Kay," Helga said and went outside. But instead of heading to the dumpster, she walked to the beach and stood there, looking at her locket.

Before, Arnold or maybe even Phoebe would have saved her-but Arnold wasn't here and Helga wasn't going to be saved this time. Phoebe, Arnold, Gerald, Sid, Rhonda-none of them were here. And because Helga's dad threw away that address book, she had no way of getting in contact.

"Who was he really?" Alyssa, who had also come to Amber's beach house, was behind Helga.

"A guy I had a crush on in elementary school," Helga said.

"Why is his head shaped like a football?"

Helga laughed. "Beats me-his grandpa didn't have a foot-ball shaped head-I think he got it from his dad,"

"He lived with his grandparents?"

"His parents went missing when he was little…"

"Oh…are you going to keep the locket?"

Helga shook her head. "No point," with that, Helga reached her arm back and threw the locket far into the ocean.

"I guess some things are better left dead," Helga said.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

5 years later…

16 year old Helga got home for her first day of summer. _2 more years and I can get out of this madhouse. _She had just finished her sophomore year of high school and even has the opportunity to graduate early, so it may only be a year and a half. When Helga reached sophomore year, Alyssa told Helga something that made Helga want to scream in anguish-Alyssa had gotten a full ride scholarship to a boarding school in Maryland. There, Alyssa had an opportunity to be herself and not worry about getting hurt.

Helga was then determined to do better in school-she applied for applications for scholarships to get out of the damn town, but she was always denied. But she was able to attend AP classes and managed to get B's and A's out of all of them (she tried to get straight A's but could never manage). After sophomore year was over, the principal told Helga she had an opportunity to graduate early and Helga knew this was her chance to get out of this stupid town in Vermont.

She thought she may go to a college close to Hillwood.

Helga went up to her room and pulled out her list of summer reads that she needed for AP English next year. She listed the books and then went into her dad's study and logged onto his computer. After checking the prices of the books, Helga went back to her room to calculate how much money she had from her after school job at the public library.

_Another thing to look forward to-not having to shelve books anymore. _Helga thought. She emptied her cigar box of savings she had hid from her parents (after Miriam used it to buy ingredients for her 'smoothies') taped under her desk and began counting money when she heard the front door slam.

"MIRIAM! Miriam, where are you?"

Bob was home-after Helga graduated from middle school and even managed to be on the Honor student list and her parents didn't even bother showing up for her graduation, Helga stopped calling her parents 'mom' 'dad' and 'pops' even. Just Bob and Miriam now, and that was the way it was going to stay.

"MIRIAM!"

"Ow!" The bonk Helga heard told her that Miriam probably had her head inside the cabinet again. "Oh, I was looking for my wallet…"

"On the kitchen table," Bob said.

"Oh, right,"

"Miriam, there's no easy way to say this,"

"Oh, hi Bob, when did you get home?" Helga rolled her eyes at her mom's…brain deadiness.

"You're drunk AGAIN aren't you?"

When Helga was fourteen, she discovered why her mom was so out of it almost all of the time-the 'smoothies' she drank constantly were always filled with vodka. She figured out her mom was an alcoholic and was shocked she'd never figured it out sooner.

"What are you talking about? I, uh, I don't drink," she heard her mom slur.

"Oh, you're not, are you? What's in that smoothie you're drinking then?"

"Uh, what usually goes into a smoothie, you know, yogurt, blueberries, eggshells,"

"Eggshells? Miriam, do you even HEAR yourself?"

"I don't know why you're yelling, Bob,"

"Miriam, I want a divorce,"

The ten dollar bill Helga was counting slipped from her hand and drifted to the floor.

_Divorce? _

Helga always suspected that divorce would result from her parent's marriage-but it still hit Helga hard. She had hoped it wouldn't happen until she had graduated and gone off to college.

"Oh, well, it's about time…" Miriam said.

"About…about time? How long have you been thinking THAT?"

"Since I found out about you're precious 'Ashley',"

"Uh…who?"

"Oh, God, Bob, how stupid do you think I am? Do you think I didn't know why we moved to this godforsaken town? That you followed that skanky whore here so you could-"

Helga almost wanted to plug her ears, but she had to know more. She carefully exited the room and sat on the staircase so she could listen more closely.

"So, then that's it," Bob said "I'm leaving tonight, okay? I'm taking the computer, the TV, the stereo-"

"Oh, NO you don't," Miriam yelled. "After all the constant crap I've put up with you for almost thirty years, I deserve the TV AND the stereo!"

"Fine, take the stuff, I don't care! But I'm taking the exercise equipment!"

"Go ahead and take it, Bob-you think I actually want something that has your disgusting sweat all over it?"

"Well, then, I think this couch would be a perfect way for you to repay me for all the booze you bought using MY money,"

"Fine, I don't want the damn couch anyway!"

"I'm also taking the armoire!"

Their voices were getting so loud, the neighbors could probably hear.

"Fine, I'll have the master bed!" Miriam yelled.

"Fine!" Bob yelled back.

"Don't forget Helga's stuff!"

There was a pause and Helga felt her heart leap into her throat. Was she going to get out of this town for good?

"What are you talking about?" Bob said. "I'm not taking her,"

"What? You don't want full custody?"

"Of course not, you're the mother! You take her!"

"Well, _I _don't want her!"

Helga could hear bombs going off in her ears. Slowly, she got back up and walked into her room and sat down on her bed.

Helga knew from the beginning her parents didn't want her-but they always had the decency to never say it out loud. And now that Helga finally heard it…she wasn't about to live here anymore.

_I've still got at least two years in this goddamn perfect town. _Helga thought to herself and couldn't stop her tears from falling. _What the hell am I going to do? What am I going to do? _

Just then, Helga's eyes fell on her duffel bag.

And Helga began to think.

She had three hundred dollars-a one-way bus ticket was about 53 dollars. Helga could get a bus ticket and still have plenty of money to live off on until Helga could get a job. But where would she go?

Helga wanted to smack herself for the painfully obvious answer. What other place could she go?

Hillwood

That settled it-Helga began digging around her room and began thinking. She needed clothes, obviously. But when she opened her drawer she saw all she had were Olga's cutesy hand-me-downs.

No way was Helga wearing those anymore-if Helga was leaving, it would be as herself, not as some prissy pants.

Helga dug around until she found jeans that still fit her and a bunch of old shirts that she only wore when she was positive no one was watching her. She stuffed her duffel bag and decided if she saw an old thrift shop, she'd buy some cheap clothes too.

She'd also need toiletries; Helga waited until she heard her parents move the argument on who would take Helga into the bedroom and then went to the bathroom. She grabbed her toothbrush, the tube of toothpaste and swiped the shampoo and conditioner. As Helga stuffed her bag, she saw herself looking prissy in the mirror.

This wasn't the old Helga.

Helga dunked her head under the sink and washed the mouse and hairspray out of her hair and even waited for it to dry so she could see her loveable hair poking up like it would.

It wouldn't.

Helga waited, wet her hair again and waited for it to dry again.

It wouldn't stick up.

Helga had straightened her hair to the point where it was permanently straight. But Helga wasn't standing for it-instead, she just put her hair up in two pigtails and decided it was close enough to the old Helga. Her unibrow would grow back in time, she was sure of it. She then changed into some comfy jeans and an old pink t-shirt. _Oh, how I missed you…_ Helga thought.

After making sure her parents were still arguing in their room, Helga ran downstairs and took all the food she could find-a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly, a box of crackers, granola bars, four cans of beans with a can opener and a box of plastic silverware and finally, a can of spray cheese. It was good enough for Helga.

Helga ran up to her room one more time to make sure she had everything. Clothes, food, toiletries and Helga's money; Helga thought she was good to go when she saw a familiar brown jacket lying on her desk chair. The jacket used to belong to Alyssa, but when Alyssa went off to boarding school, she gave the jacket to Helga.

Helga put on the jacket and walked downstairs; she considered leaving a note, but decided her parents wouldn't care either way.

Helga listened to her parents argue more about who would take Helga-little did they know neither of them would take her-she was taking herself.

So, Helga let herself out the door.

And never looked back

. . .

Helga woke up that morning and saw a familiar billboard sign-she looked out the window of the bus and saw more things that looked familiar-the Maverick gas station, the high school, the park…she was there!

She was back at Hillwood!

The driver stopped and Helga practically ripped herself off the bus and looked around.

Life never felt better.

Helga felt herself tear-the place hadn't changed, not really. She walked down the street and saw the old meat shop still there, the florists, everyone was still there. Were any of her old friends there?

Helga wondered that, but then she looked up and noticed it was starting to rain. Helga suddenly realized she had nowhere to go-she had no one to live with, nothing. She couldn't remember Phoebe's address, but Helga remembered Hillwood like the back of her hand-she would find it in no time! Maybe Phoebe would let Helga stay with her-of course Helga would have to explain why she never wrote to Phoebe; but she would be so happy, even if she slept on the streets.

Helga walked and somehow found herself in front of her old house. The blue paint was now chipped, cracks and dust covered the front door steps; Helga could see the lawn in the backyard was overgrown and the For Sale sign Helga had watched her father put up five years ago was still there.

No one had ever moved into her house! This gave Helga an idea-she entered the ally and noticed the drain pipe led to Helga's old bedroom window. Helga climbed up and discovered the window unlocked-carefully, she slid inside and looked around.

The room was dusty, but Helga didn't care.

She was home.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Helga stood in her old bedroom, not sure what to do; or rather, what to do first?

Helga stood for a few minutes before letting out a huge whop and punching a fist in the air-she had made it! She had ridden the bus, got to Hillwood safely without any problems-and had even found a temporary place to stay and what a place to stay it was! Helga didn't care if it was dusty and the wallpaper was peeling, her old home was the one place Helga wanted to stay but never dared dreamed about. And here she was, in Hillwood at least a year earlier than planned. She was back-she was home!

Helga thought of what to do first-she could go exploring and see what's new to the neighborhood, if anything changed since she left. She could go to old empty plot that the kids in the neighborhood would play baseball when they were kids. Maybe she could even go to P.S. 118, see if Mr. Simmons was there-maybe even say hello to Principal Warts, if he was still there.

Just then, Helga heard a tune she hadn't heard in years-it was a simple music box like tune, but catchy. Every kid in the neighborhood knew what that tune meant.

The Jolly-Olly Ice Cream truck!

Helga thought quickly-she still had over 200 dollars even after buying her bus ticket. Helga thought she could spare a couple dollars for a fudgsicle. She grabbed a twenty from her cigar box and stuffed it in her pocket. Then she grabbed her stuff and stuffed it in the attic-if anyone broke into the house, they wouldn't think to look in the attic, probably because they didn't know the door was in Helga's closet.

Helga ran out the back door and had a sudden thought-she saw the old pot that nobody in the family bothered to take with them when they moved. Helga didn't think the spare key was still there, but she felt like she should check to make sure.

"Eureka!" Helga said and pulled the spare key out. She ran to the front door and checked it-it still worked! The moving company must have never bothered to change the locks on the house.

Helga locked the front door and ran outside to see the jolly-olly man serving some little kids-one of them looked a little familiar but Helga decided to put it aside for ice cream. She approached the same old guy that had served her five years ago, ordered a fudgsicle and began to partake-Helga was always afraid to have ice cream in Vermont because she was afraid other kids would start calling her 'fat' or 'pig' or something and the bullying would start all over again.

As Helga took a bite, she saw the familiar girl walk up to her.

"Do I know you?" she asked.

"Probably," Helga said. "I used to live here,"

The girl was about to ask something when one of the boys with her called 'Hey, Timberly!" and the girl looked at Helga, waved and walked away.

Timberly…why did that name sound familiar? Helga snapped her fingers when she remembered-of course, Timberly was Gerald's little sister! So Gerald must still be living here if Timblerly's here. And if Gerald was here-was Arnold still here too?

Helga hadn't thought of Arnold in forever-ever since she threw her locket in the ocean, she had decided that Arnold was a thing of the past. Her wild stalkerish antics had to end sometime, after all. And when Helga's dad threw out her 'Arnold Shrine', she never felt the need or will to build it again and decided it was time to move on.

But Helga couldn't help but wonder if she saw Arnold again if she would feel anything. Helga decided the only way to find out was to see Arnold herself-if he was still here, of course.

Helga decided to take a trip down memory lane-she headed for the familiar empty plot that the kids played baseball on. She wandered for a few minutes before finding it-the baseball stuff was still there, but there were younger kids playing there now. Helga looked to see if she saw anyone familiar but she couldn't see anyone. Helga decided she would go to Phoebe's house and see if she still lived there and started to head down the sidewalk.

"Gee wilikers! Helga, is that you?"

Helga turned around and saw two familiar faces.

"Stinky! Sid!" Helga almost felt herself tearing. She really was home if some of her childhood friends were here. And they didn't look that much different-Stinky was taller than ever, but his hair was hanging around his shoulders instead of sticking straight up and was held back by a ponytail; he still had a green shirt but had baggy jeans with sneakers. Sid looked the same as he did five years ago, just a little taller and his jeans weren't as skinny.

"I told ya that was her; you owe me five bucks Sid," Stinky said.

Helga didn't think-she rushed at the boys and threw her arms around them.

"Whoa…uh, Stinky, you sure this is Helga?" Sid said.

"Course I am, I'd know that unibrow anywhere,"

"You trying to pick a fight already, Stinky?" Helga said pulling back from them.

"Yup, that's her alright," Sid said. "Wow Helga, you sure look different,"

Helga knew they were talking about how her hair didn't stick up anymore-but her unibrow had grown back, so some old part of Helga was still there.

"And you act a little different too," Stinky said.

"Yeah, sorry," Helga said, rubbing her arm. "I just really missed you guys-so, where is everyone? How is everyone doing?"

"Everyone's still here," Sid said. "Rhonda moved a few years after you left, but she moved back with her mom a year ago because her parents got divorced,"

"Does everyone live where they used to, even Phoebe?" Helga asked.

"Yup, no one but Rhonda's left since you moved," Stinky said.

"I guess that means the gang's back, Stinky!" Sid said.

"The gang is totally back, Sid," Helga said. "I'm going to go see if I can track down Phoebe-I'll talk to you later, okay?"

Helga waved goodbye and began to head to Phoebe's house-it wasn't long before she made it there.

Helga paused at the front door, not sure what to do. Should she go and knock? Should she just wait here for her to come out? Helga finally decided to go and knock-after a few seconds, someone answered the door; Helga recognized the woman as Phoebe's mother.

"Uh, hi Mrs. Heyerdahl…is Phoebe here?"

"Yes, I'll go get her," Mrs. Heyerdahl paused for a minute to look at Helga. "You look familiar," she said.

"Uh, yeah, I was an old friend of Phoebe's," Helga said.

"Oh, yes, you were that Olga girl!"

"Helga, Mrs. Heyerdahl,"

"Oh, yes, of course-hang on just one minute while I go get Phoebe," Mrs. Heyerdahl disappeared and Helga wondered what would change about Phoebe. Would Phoebe forgive Helga for not writing her like she promised?

Before Helga could really plan out what to say, a familiar figure bounded down the stairs. "Helga, is that you?" Phoebe said, screeching to a halt by her front door.

"Well, the one and only," Helga said, relieved to see that nothing much had changed about Phoebe either. Her hair was longer, but she still wore that familiar yellow scrunchie-she had new glasses that were black with rectangle frames and instead of wearing the blue sweatshirt, she wore a pretty blue dress with elbow length sleeves. But it was still Phoebe, Helga could see just by looking at her.

Helga didn't have long to think about it before Phoebe wrapped her arms around Helga until Helga almost felt like she couldn't breathe.

"I was worried-you never wrote, I thought something terrible happened to you-I tried looking you up, but I couldn't find you anywhere!"

Helga patted Phoebe on the back. "Yeah, sorry about that-Bob threw away my book of addresses-I couldn't remember it off the back of my hand, I didn't know your number, so I just could never get to contact you,"

"Oh, you're here! That's all that matters!" Phoebe took a step back and smiled with tears in her eyes.

"Hey, Phoebe, do you mind if I take off?" A boy walked down the stairs and approached Phoebe. "I'll probably need to help make dinner and-" when the boy saw Helga, he stopped for a minute and looked at her.

"Wait…" he said. "Helga?"

Helga was dumbstruck when she heard him speak, but finally found her voice. "Oh…hey Arnold,"


	5. Chapter 5

[A/N:] Holy crap, am I on a role! It normally takes me at least a week or two (a month at most) to update one of my chapters, but I started writing and the next thing I know, I've written two chapters! Thank you all for supporting this, even though I know it's not the best out there. Here's hoping I'll finish this with my sanity intact! (It's been really hard for me to try to portray the characters as they were in the show with only a few changes). One more thing-if any of the descriptions of the characters sound familiar, it's because I've based it off of some fan art that someone did of the Hey Arnold gang in high school with a few of my own changes, but for the life of me, I cannot find the artist to credit. If anyone knows, please let me know so I can give credit to the artist so I won't feel like I'm ripping them off completely. Thanks in advance!

Chapter 5

"Helga?" Arnold was looking in pure shock at Helga. He didn't look too much different either-he traded the kilt (or shirt, as he called it) for a button up plaid shirt with elbow length sleeves with a green t-shirt underneath and jeans and he still wore the tiny blue hat.

"Wow, you look different," Arnold said.

"Uh…so do you," Helga said, fiddling with her shirt.

"What are you doing back in town, Helga?" Phoebe asked.

Crap! Helga hadn't thought of a good story; Helga really didn't want anyone to know that she was, technically, homeless. And who knew how much people change? If she told, someone could go blabbing it to the realtors and she would be busted. But for the past few years, Helga had become an expert at lying.

"Well, my mom was sick of our town," Helga said immediately. "So, Bob stayed in Vermont and we moved back into our old house-we're back for good, apparently,"

"So, that means you'll be coming to our new high school, right?" Phoebe said.

"Looks like," Helga said.

"Oh, that's wonderful!" Phoebe hugged Helga tightly and Arnold stood there, smiling but a little uncomfortable.

"Welcome back, Helga-I'm glad to see you're doing okay," Arnold turned to Phoebe. "Okay if we do this some other time? I should get going,"

"Oh, sure Arnold, be safe going back," Phoebe said.

"See you," Arnold said and before he left, turned and put a hand on Helga's shoulder lightly. "I'm glad you're back, Helga," Arnold said.

"Thanks," Helga said.

Arnold left and Phoebe invited Helga inside her house-they grabbed a few snacks and went up into Phoebe's room, which was now decked with more modern band posters, a huge book collection and a few classical CD's.

"So, how is everything?" Helga asked. "How's school going?"

"Great," Phoebe said. "I have an opportunity to graduate a year early, but I'm not sure if I'm going to take it-I might just spend my senior year just…I don't know, having fun,"

"Well, if anyone deserves to have fun, it's you Phoebs," Helga sighed a little as she sat back against the bed. It was just like old times; Phoebe's nickname rolled off her tongue like normal and it almost felt like Helga never left. "So, Stinky said everyone's still living here, right?"

"Yes," Phoebe said. "You ran into Stinky?"

"And Sid," Helga said. "Are they all okay?"

"Well, Sid has a job at the pet store, Harold got an after school job at Mr. Green's meat shop, Stinky and Gerald are on the varsity basketball and baseball team for our school, Arnold plans to go into Archaeology, it turns out Eugene has had so many accidents that he applies for four different scholarships and Rhonda apparently has an opportunity to go to a top fashion design school in Rhode Island…as far as I know, anyway,"

"You've been reading the tabloids,"

"I had to help Harold and Sid prepare their resume's, had to help Stinky and Gerald with their grades so they can stay on the teams and I've helped Rhonda prepare her portfolio and Arnold write a few pre-essays for scholarships for college, and everyone knows about Eugene's scholarships-it was so hilarious no one could keep their mouths shut,"

"Sounds like you've been busy-have you done anything else besides helping others prepare for their futures?"

"Well, I've been studying, of course; I also have a job working at the library a few days of the week and I've started running a tutoring business-that's why most people come to me for help. Friends get discounts,"

"Huh," Helga said. "Is that why Arnold was here?"

"Yes, he wants to submit an essay for a scholarship but wants to make sure it's perfect before he submits it, so we go over it every so often,"

"When's the deadline for the scholarship?"

"Next year," Phoebe said.

Helga whistled. "You give him a discount too?"

"Oh no, I tutor Arnold for free,"

Helga bit her lip-she didn't want to really ask, but something nagged at her to. She thought the meeting with Arnold and Phoebe was just a little too…close. "Are you and him…you know…"

"Dating?" Phoebe giggled. "Goodness, Helga, you've only been back for a day and you already have your sights set on Arnold,"

"I do not, I was just curious," Helga said. "So…are you?"

"No, no, of course not," Phoebe said. "As far as I know, Arnold isn't dating anyone; I'd assume you'd want to know,"

"I don't," Helga said, but couldn't stop the small blush from coming on. "It's just he was here, you two seemed a little friendly and you just said you give him tutoring sessions for free…I just…"

"Helga, there's a reason I give Arnold free tutoring sessions,"

"Please enlighten me," Helga said.

"Well, I tutor really close friends and family for free…but that also includes really close friends and family of boyfriends,"

"Close friends of…" Helga paused, putting the pieces together, then slapped her knee and laughed. "Phoebs, you sly fox!"

Phoebe didn't answer but giggled.

"How long have you two been dating?" Helga asked.

"Since Christmas,"

"How'd that happen? I assume it was during a studying session?"

"You assume wrong; we were at a Christmas party at Rhonda's-there was a 'girls ask' dance and all the guys were already being danced with except for Gerald…I didn't want to look left out, so I went to ask Gerald,"

"And you bonded over the dance?" Helga asked, snickering a little at the corniness.

"Actually, another girl came over and asked Gerald to dance while I was on my way towards him,"

"Oh…"

"But then, Gerald came over and told me he'd noticed that I was going to ask him before that girl did, so he asked me to dance,"

"That's the dance you bonded over?"

"Something like that-we started talking about sports and I told Gerald I didn't know how to play basketball. By then, people were starting to leave Rhonda's party, so Gerald offered to teach me, since his parents said he didn't have to be home until later. So, Gerald, Arnold, Stinky and I all went out and they all started teaching me basketball,"

"Don't tell me you're dating all three of them," Helga said.

"Just wait-Well, Arnold got cold and went home, Stinky's mom called and told him it was time to go home so in the end, it was just Gerald and I playing basketball; he started telling me how he was having a hard time keeping his grades up and if he didn't bring them up, he wouldn't be able to play basketball next year, so I told him I would help him. After a few study sessions, we got closer and closer…next thing I know, he's asking me to a movie,"

"Way to go Phoebs," Helga said and slapped Phoebe on the back. "Didn't know you had it in you,"

Phoebe giggled but then turned to Helga eagerly. "Oh, gosh, wait till you hear this!"

Helga wasn't usually into gossip, but it felt so good to catch up, she listened. "Go ahead,"

"Well, ever since the beginning of sophomore year, Arnold has been trying his hardest to get Lila to go out with him; he would ask her at least once every two weeks!"

"That doesn't sound like Arnold-did she keep turning him down?"

"Almost-see, a week before the big Halloween dance, Arnold asked Lila to the dance twice. I guess Lila got tired of it and finally said yes! So, they went to the dance and halfway through it, Arnold approaches Gerald and tells him he'd never been so bored in his life-he asked Gerald if Lila had always been this boring!"

Helga started laughing hysterically. "Finally, the dope sees it! So, what'd he do?"

"You won't believe this-Arnold got so bored, he actually _paid _Harold to ask her to dance so he could get away from her,"

Helga and Phoebe burst into laughter-Phoebe's laugh was light and delicate, as usual while Helga's was loud and a few snorts were thrown in there.

Phoebe and Helga kept talking for the rest of the day, laughing, catching up and Helga had never felt more at home. Eventually Mrs. Heyerdahl asked Helga to stay over for dinner-after dinner was over, Phoebe offered to walk Helga home. They walked home giggling and laughing about silly stories Phoebe would tell of their old friends.

"Well, here it is," Helga said, back to their old house.

"Huh, looks like it'll need to be fixed up," Phoebe said.

"I'll…I mean, Miriam and I will worry about it later-night Phoebs,"

"Helga, you're For Sale sign is still by the front door," Phoebe said.

Helga looked and saw it was. "Well, no time like the present," Helga picked up the For Sale sign and threw it into the street garbage can.

As Helga walked up the stairs, Phoebe ran up and gave Helga one last hug.

"Welcome home, Helga,"


	6. Chapter 6

[Important A/N: PLEASE READ!] Sorry it took me so long, I've been going through a lot of emotional stuff lately. Hope this chapter's okay, I was kind of out of it when I was writing, but I didn't want to keep putting it off, because I want to write as much as I can before I go back to school.

Chapter 6

When Helga got up to her room, she pulled her stuff out of the attic and checked the cigar box to make sure her money was still there-when she was positive everything was where it should be and that there were no other bums that had crawled through the house while she was away, she put her stuff down and calculated about how much money she had.

Helga knew she needed to get a job and decided she would start looking tomorrow. Until then, she needed something for dinner, so she ran out to a small deli shop nearby to get a sandwich.

As she was ordering, she heard a familiar laugh-it was a cocky laugh, but Helga knew the laugh was just the laugher's big talk. In reality, this laugher was a big softy-Helga turned to discover her suspicions were right.

Harold sat at one of the tables with an extremely tall girl and a familiar looking boy that Helga soon realized was Eugene-but mostly because the cast on his leg was a dead giveaway. Helga thought about saying hello, but she was so hungry and tired from traveling on the bus for the past few days that she decided there was plenty of time for saying hello.

After all, she was back for good, wasn't she?

Helga grabbed her sandwich and a pop and went back to her old-or rather, new-house. After eating, she stretched and yawned a little-it was only nine o'clock at night, but Helga was so tired, she decided she would just go to bed anyway. She stood up, but suddenly realized she had no place soft to sleep.

Oh, well.

Not to let such a tiny thing bother her, Helga went to the space in her room where her bed used to be-she grabbed the blanket she had grabbed when she left home and laid it on the floor with her pillow. She got dressed into her pair of long cotton pajama pants and baggy t-shirt and then stretched out using her leather jacket from Alyssa as a mini blanket.

For a few minutes, Helga stared up at the ceiling, and thought about her friends that she hadn't seen in forever.

None of them seemed to have really changed all that much-Helga felt like she's been to the moon and back, but everyone else seemed pleasantly the same. Taller, more mature and obviously smarter but still the same. Phoebe was smarter than ever and it looked like Arnold was still nice as ever. Stinky still had that southern drawl even though he's been living in the city for years now and Sid still seemed the same. Harold wasn't as pudgy as he was when they were kids, but it was clear he still eats a lot-and from the talk of Eugene having got a scholarship for all his accidents, he must still be a jinx.

Helga took a minute to think about Arnold-she had pretty much let him go years ago, so she didn't like him like him, like in the fourth grade…but there was still that warm feeling she had when she saw him that day. Helga realized that she didn't really know how she felt about Arnold. A part of her felt like she still cared for him, but the other part said it was just her old childhood trying to rekindle with 'an old flame' or something. Helga thought about it and decided she wouldn't try to start or even think about a relationship until she sorted out her situation and got a job.

Helga stretched back on her makeshift bed and looked at the ceiling. The blue peeling wallpaper somehow lulled her into sleep.

. . .

Banging on the front door is what woke Helga up that next morning. She glanced at her watch and saw it was almost noon-she must have been really tired yesterday to sleep this late. The banging brought Helga back to reality and she quickly got dressed and ran downstairs to answer the door. Phoebe greeted her with a big hug-and a tall boy with even taller hair was there as well.

"Gerald?" Helga said.

"Dang, you were right, Phoebs," Gerald put his arm around Phoebe, almost like a statement that they were obviously dating. "When Phoebe told me you were back, I thought she was making it up,"

"And I asked you why I would make up something like that," Phoebe said, poking Gerald in the ribs.

"And I told you because you're just a crazy chick,"

"And I told you that you wouldn't know crazy if it came up and introduced itself to you,"

"And then I informed you guys," Helga interrupted. "That I'm still here-any particular reason you guys are here, other than to pretty much let me know you're dating?"

"Oh yeah," Gerald said. "We're having a baseball game on the old plot that we used when we were kids-first game of the summer. Phoebe said we should invite you too,"

Baseball! Oh, did Helga miss baseball! She hadn't played once, because in Vermont, baseball and other sports were considered 'boy things'. The only girly sport they had was, of course, cheerleading. Which Helga drew the line at when she was offered after changing her looks-every person had a line to draw, and Helga drew it at cheerleading. Luckily, no one gave her crap for not joining cheer.

"Why didn't you say so?" Helga said. "Just give me two seconds,"

"Where's all your stuff?" Phoebe glanced inside and noticed that the house was completely empty.

"Uh, we just haven't unpacked yet," Helga said.

"Where are all the boxes then?" Gerald asked.

"They're…in the garage, just give me two seconds, kay?" Helga closed the door and ran upstairs before they could ask any more questions-if any of them knew that Helga was technically a runaway, they may just ship Helga back to Vermont.

And Helga was NOT going back to that town-she'd rather be on the run the rest of her life.

Helga stuffed her duffel bag in the attic and ran back downstairs and rejoined Phoebe and Gerald and they all headed on their way.

"Oh, dang," Gerald said on the way. "I forgot to tell Arnold that we changed practice to noon instead of two,"

"Helga, why don't you go get Arnold?" Phoebe said. "You can meet us at the plot,"

Helga squinted at Phoebe, which made her squirm-it was obvious they were telling Helga to go get Arnold because they were…what, trying to set her up? Well, the last thing Helga wanted right now was a relationship-besides she still wasn't sure how she felt about Arnold. But Helga wasn't really in the mood to argue.

"Sure, whatever," Helga said and pointed to a nearby street. "Isn't it down this way?"

"Yeah, then you take a left at 3rd," Gerald said. "See you there,"

Helga started down the street, but kind of dragged her feet; Phoebe didn't admit it, but it was pretty obvious that she sent Helga to Arnold's for a reason-for all Helga knew, they had changed the time for practice just so they could send Helga to go get Arnold.

It wasn't that long before Helga reached Arnold's house-Helga wasn't sure if she was ready for this, but she wanted to just do it and get it over with. She ran up the steps and rang the bell-it wasn't long before a familiar old man answered the door.

"Yes, hello? Oh, are you a salesman? How many times have I got to take my name off the list for soliciting-"

"Actually, I'm here to see Arnold," Helga said. "And they have signs that say 'no soliciting' for the salesmen,"

"You're here to see Arnold? The boy barely has any money, why would you want to sell something to-"

"Who is it, Grandpa?" Arnold appeared at the doorway.

"Uh…hey," Helga said.

"Sorry, short man," Arnold's Grandpa said. "I told her you weren't interested, but she insisted-"

"She's not a salesman, Grandpa, she's an old friend from elementary school-you remember, I told you that Helga Pataki moved back last night at dinner,"

"Did you? Ah, I forget-so then, what's going-"

They were interrupted by a large crash followed by some loud yelling. "Dang it, Oskar, why can't you leave things alone? Why do you have to go around snooping through other people's stuff?"

"I told you, I ah-lost my wallet, I thought I might have accidentally put it in your room,"

"You haven't been allowed in my room since the chicken incident two years ago-and you weren't looking for your wallet, you were looking _through _mine!"

"I was uh, just ah-looking for a nice photo of you to put in my room, don't you trust me Ernie? Heh, heh, heh…"

"Why are you worrying about wallets? My prized vase is broken now! Who is going to pay for this?"

"Alright, what's going on?" Arnolds' grandpa left the room, leaving Arnold and Helga by themselves.

"So, uh, what are you doing here?" Arnold asked.

"Well, Phoebe wanted me to tell you that they switched the practice times from 2 to noon," Helga said.

"Really?" Arnold asked. "I wonder why Gerald didn't just call me; he's got a cell phone,"

Oh, Helga could think of a few good reasons.

"Well, let me go get my bat and glove," Arnold said.

"Okay, see you there," Helga said and turned to leave.

"Wait, you're leaving?"

Helga stopped. "Uh, well…I was going to…I uh, I mean…"

"I didn't, well… I didn't mean anything by it, I just-I mean, I just assumed you'd wanna walk there together or something…" Arnold shifted and Helga saw his cheeks turning a slight pink.

"I didn't really think about it…" Helga said. "But, I'm willing to wait, I guess,"

"Uh, great, back in a few," Arnold closed the door and Helga seated herself on the front steps to wait.

A few seconds went by, listening to the arguing voices when Helga heard a large crash that sounded like dishes being broke, followed by woman's voice yelping slightly. Helga was concerned, but waited until she heard the woman's voice yell 'Ow!' before she got up to enter the house.

Helga entered the house, knocking on the door softly. "Uh, hello?" Helga called. "Is everything okay?"

Another loud breaking glass crash came from the kitchen, with a 'confound it!' to follow. Helga quickly raced to the kitchen to see a small set of broken plates with a cracked vase.

"Oh, can't a woman make watermelon for dinner in her kitchen without breaking a dish?" the woman said and looked at Helga softly. Helga stared for a few minutes before quickly averting her eyes, realizing how rude it was to stare like that.

"Oh, don't act shy on my account, Darlene; you know I told you about my operation,"

"Grandma?" Arnold appeared in the kitchen, carrying a baseball bat and glove. "I heard something crash and-"Arnold saw the dishes. "Oh, I'll go get the broom,"

"Let me help," Helga said.

"Helga? How'd you get in?"

Helga realized that she must look like an intruder-Arnold didn't think Helga came in and broke the dishes, did he?

"Sorry, I heard a crash," Helga said. "I just…the door was unlocked, I just wanted to help…sorry, I'll go let myself out," Helga turned to leave only to run into the table, knocking over a small glass and heard it shatter.

"Oh, no!" Helga groaned. "I'm so sorry, I'll replace it, I swear,"

"Alright, no one moves until I get the broom," Arnold said. Arnold got the broom then brought it back and began to sweep.

"I'll go get a garbage bag," Helga said. "Where are they?"

"In that cabinet over there," Arnold said, pointing. Helga carefully stepped around to make sure she didn't break anything else, grabbed a trash bag and brought it back over, watching where she stepped so she didn't break anything more than it needed to be broken. Arnold would sweep up the glass and Helga held open the bag so Arnold could dump it.

"I'm so sorry about your glass," Helga said, feeling her face turn a pink as a radish…or were radishes red? "I'll replace it, just tell me how much money it cost,"

"You don't have to worry about it," Arnold said, scooping up the last of the glass. "It was a cheap set; it can easily be replaced,"

"Oh, thanks for your help Darlene; now, why don't we go catch up while I make dinner?"

"Actually, grandma," Arnold said. "Darlene needs to get home,"

"Oh," Arnold's grandmother smiled up at Helga. "Well, it was nice seeing you, dear; drop by again soon,"

"Uh…will do," Helga said, and with that, they left.

They spent a few minutes in quiet silence before Arnold broke it. "Look, I know you're dying to ask," Arnold said.

"Ask what?" Helga said.

"How my grandma wound up in a wheelchair,"

"Oh, that," Helga averted her eyes. "I thought it would be rude to ask, so…"

"It's okay-she got a blood clot in one leg and the bottom of her leg had to be amputated,"

"Wait, her leg was amputated?" Helga said; she was sure she saw both legs on his grandmother.

"Yeah, she has this dummy leg that she wears so people don't stare-she got sick of everyone, even the boarding house always staring at her leg,"

"Is it rough?" Helga said.

"A little…I've had to help my grandma a lot around the house since it happened,"

"When was her leg amputated?"

"About a year ago-I think I'm starting to get used to it now,"

"That's good," another few minutes went by without a word before Arnold, again, broke the silence.

"So, how're your parents?"

Helga hadn't spoken to her parents since she ran away-but she was obviously wasn't going to tell Arnold that.

"My mom's fine, this is her first day at her new job,"

"Oh yeah? Nice…"

Finally, they reached the abandoned plot-Helga sighed a little in relief, but for a second-just a second-she felt disappointed. Even though it was mostly awkward silence, Helga did like talking to Arnold.

A lot.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

By the time they reached the old abandoned plot, everyone was already there, everyone Helga remembered. Eugene sat on the bench off to the side, his leg still in a cast and Helga wasn't sure, but she was positive he had a black eye this time. Some things never change!

"Finally, now we can get started!" Gerald said. "Same teams as usual?"

"Sure," Arnold said. "Curly, Herold, Sheena, Stinky, and Brainy on my team,"

"Rhonda, Nadine, Phoebe, Sid and Lila on my team," Gerald said.

"What about Helga?" Phoebe said.

"Helga?" Arnold said, like he had no idea what they were talking about.

"Uh-AHEM!" Helga coughed loudly behind Arnold.

"Oh, right," Arnold said. "We're six each, but if Helga plays, one team'll be short one member,"

"So have Eugene play," Helga said.

"Uh, Helga," Gerald said. "In case you haven't noticed, Eugene's in a cast,"

"Have him be catcher," Helga said. "He won't have to move around that much-it'll be challenging, but if he works hard he can deal with it-we played with him once when he was in a wheelchair with both of his legs broken and his shoulder dislocated, remember?"

Phoebe giggled. "I'd forgotten about that,"

"Yeah," Arnold said. "I'm surprised you remembered that, Helga,"

"Guess I have a better memory that you do, football head," the insult Helga had created for Arnold years ago rolled off her tongue like she had taken a bite out of melted butter. Helga was afraid Arnold would take it the wrong way, but instead, Arnold laughed.

"I think I actually missed you calling me that," Arnold said.

"Uh, yeah," Helga felt herself blush a little, but shook it away quickly. "So, I'll be on Gerald's team, Eugene on Arnold's,"

"Losing team pays for after game ice cream," Gerald said.

"You're on," Arnold said and Helga almost laughed when she saw Gerald and Arnold do that weird handshake they did when they were kids-it was so familiar, Helga wanted to cry. She really was home this time!

Phoebe took out a coin and stepped in between Gerald and Arnold. "Heads or tails?" she asked.

"Tails," Arnold said.

"Heads," Gerald said.

Phoebe flipped the coin and caught it-she flipped the coin over and glanced before saying "Heads-batter up!" Gerald's team was batting first-Helga went to line up with the rest of the team.

"So, how was your walk with Arnold?" Phoebe asked Helga.

"Phoebe, are you seriously trying to set me up?" Helga asked.

"No-oh, why would I do that?" Helga saw Phoebe crack a small smile and Helga rolled her eyes.

"Will you think about this, Phoebs? It's been years since I've seen Arnold-I don't even know how I feel about him or anyone else for that matter,"

"Wait-" Phoebe paused, frowning. "You don't have a boyfriend back in Vermont or something, do you?"

"No!" Helga said. "But…look, I just don't want a relationship right now, okay? I'm still getting settled, I don't need to be set up right now," Helga was partially correct-she was mostly afraid that if Phoebe did set her up with someone, they'd notice that she was a runaway and send her back to Vermont. She wasn't sure if she'd ever be able to tell anyone, but she'd rather get to know everyone again to make sure they wouldn't rat her out.

"Whatever you say, Helga," Phoebe said, but the look on her face told Helga that Phoebe wasn't going to stop trying to set up Arnold and Helga anytime soon.

"Phoebe?" Helga said, taking her shoulders. "I don't want to date anyone-okay?"

"I get it, Helga," Phoebe said, but Helga knew that Phoebe was still going to try her hardest to get them together-why, Helga wasn't sure. Arnold was a thing of her past-she was obsessed with them when she was in Elementary school, over five years ago. She wasn't sure how she felt about him now, but she was sure she wasn't ready for a relationship.

Phoebe went up to bat and Helga started paying attention to the game-Rhonda had been struck out while Nadine had managed to get to second base.

"You can do it, babe!" Gerald called out. Phoebe giggled and raised the bat, and it made Helga felt happiness for her best friend for finally getting the guy she had a crush on for forever.

Phoebe hit the bat and raced to first base, only to be tagged by Stinky-Stinky threw the ball towards third base, Herold, and Nadine was out-three outs in less than ten minutes. Helga's first baseball game in years was not off to a good start.

The teams switched sides and Helga approached Gerald. "Where do I go?"

"Hmm…how good are your skills?"

"I haven't played in a while," Helga said.

"Really? I would have thought you were in sports all through high school,"

"There weren't any girl sports teams in my high school," which was the truth.

"Seriously? Why not?"

"…it's a long story, so where do I go?"

Gerald looked around for a bit, thinking. "Curly's usually on second base, but he hurt his wrist yesterday, so why don't you go there?"

"Sure thing," Helga said and walked to second base. Phoebe was in the outfield and saw Lila on third base-since when was Lila good enough to be on base and not in the outfield like before-then again, things change a lot, even though everything around here doesn't seemed to have changed at all.

"Batter up!" Gerald called.

Arnold was first to bat-he raised his bat and for a split second-just the tiniest millisecond-Helga found herself thinking how sexy Arnold looked with the bat raised in the air like that. The minute Helga thought that, she quickly pushed the thought out of her mind-she didn't need this, she didn't need to be thinking this! What was she doing?

Helga was so focused on her scrambled thoughts, she didn't see Arnold hit the ball as the ball reached the outfield-she didn't see Arnold take off like the dogs of Hell were nipping at his feet and she didn't see him round first base and head for her. In fact, the next thing Helga knew, she was flipped onto her back and seeing stars.

"Helga! Are you alright? I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"You were going too fast again-I told you to try out for track,"

"I'm alright," Helga managed to open her eyes and blink at the baby blue eyes that stared back at her. Helga gulped and couldn't stop the thought that Arnold was also sexy when he was two feet from her and when sweat beaded his forehead and chin. Where were these thoughts coming from?! Bad Helga, BAD!

"Are you sure?" Arnold said, still staring at her.

"Yeah," For about a minute, Helga and Arnold just stared at each other-and for the first time in years, Helga felt a familiar flutter that she remembered she had felt when she had first met Arnold back in preschool. And then, the memory flashed in her head.

_ "Hi! Nice bow,"_

_ "Huh?" _

_ "I like your bow because it's pink like your pants," And even though her pants and bow were covered in mud, he was still nice enough to compliment her, which made her heart flutter. _

Like it was doing now.

"Uh, Arnold?" Helga said softly.

"Yeah?" He said, his face seemingly closer than before.

"Your elbow's in my rib cage,"


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

1 week later…

_Helga was running through Hillwood, not sure where to go. She could hear her mom and dad yelling at her to come back or be more like Olga-she had to go back to Vermont…she would have to go back to Vermont. _

_ "Why can't you be more like your sister, Olga? She's in Alaska, helping the penguins,"_

_ "Why can't you be more like your sister, Olga?"_

_ Be more like Olga, be more like Olga-why couldn't they just leave her alone? _

_ Helga ran into her old house and slammed the door only to find herself in her house in Vermont. She could hear her parents talking in the kitchen, saying the words that forever changed Helga's life-that hurt Helga more than she let on. _

_ "Don't you want sole custody?" _

_ "Of course not! You're the mother, you take her!"_

_ "Well, I don't want her!" _

_ Helga turned around and ran back out the door only to be surrounded by the students from her old school again. _

_ "No one wants you!" they taunted. "No one will ever want you! You'll be alone forever and ever!" _

_ "NO!" Helga screamed. "That's not true, my friends welcomed me, Phoebe missed me!" The student's answers were to throw objects at her. A rock hit her head and Helga felt blinding white heat and fell back into someone else's arms. _

_ Arnold stared down at Helga, concerned. Far away, Helga could hear voices screeching, sounds that made her ears hurt, words telling her that she would have to go back to Vermont. _

_ "I can't go back," Helga told Arnold. "I can't, I won't-don't make me go back, please!" _

_ Suddenly, the image changed again and Helga wasn't staring up at the teenage Arnold, but ten year old Arnold in a small tux. "Don't worry, my poor blind friend; you're in good hands," _

Helga jolted awake, in her old room sleeping on the jacket, her back and neck horribly stiff, a week after the baseball game had ended (Helga's team won). They were treated to ice cream, Helga spent the rest of the day spending time with her old friends and catching up; although most of the time, Helga was avoiding topics, such as where her mom worked, why her house didn't have boxes and where her mom's car was.

Glancing out the window, Helga discovered that it was early morning-the sun was barely beginning to rise. Helga stretched, still tired and was ready to go back to sleep when she heard it.

A car door slam.

"Get out of the car and help us look!"

There was a loud yawn followed by a "Why did we have to do it so early?"

"I assure you, the house is in pristine condition-"

"I'm not about to buy a house without at least taking a look around,"

_No. _

Racing to the front hall to a window that showed the front of the house, Helga saw a small blue car with a couple and what looked like a sleeping infant in the car as well. Behind that car was a slightly bigger brown car with a woman in a suit with a mug of coffee in tow, trying her best to look peppy, despite it being a little past six in the morning. They were probably looking for a new house-

And they were looking at Helga's house.

Of course they would decide to look at it shortly after Helga was home. Helga hadn't thought this far…what was she going to do?!

The key in the front door began to turn and Helga dashed up the stairs and into her room. She could still hear them from downstairs.

"Where is the 'for sale' sign? I could have sworn I saw it last week when I was out here," the woman of the relationship was the more awake one.

"I'm sure one of the students of the neighborhood put it in the trash," another woman, probably the realtor, was speaking now. "Apparently, the previous owner's daughter was really good friends with the teenagers around the neighborhood; my son says the older kids talk about her often,"

They talk about her? Was that good or bad?

"Honey, can we please just take a look around," the husband, who sounded exhausted, was trying to rush his energetic wife. "Lulu can't be in the car for too long,"

"I'll glance upstairs and then head out, just calm down,"

They were sure to glance in the bedroom-how was Helga going to get out of this one?

Wait-the attic! Of course!

Helga dashed into her closet before remembering her jacket was still in the middle of the room-she raced back out and grabbed the jacket as she heard footsteps slowly crawling up the stairs. Panicking, Helga practically tore herself into the closet and pulled the attic door down, hoping they wouldn't know the attic was in there. Helga pulled the attic door closed, leaving a slight crack so she wouldn't be stuck just as she heard a door open and voices that were a little closer.

"Is this the master bedroom?"

"No, this is one of the other bedrooms-the master bedroom is just down the hall-in fact, there's an attic just in this closet,"

Oh no…

"An attic in a closet? Why didn't they just put it in the hallway like normal houses?"

"It was the way the house was built-would you like to look in the attic real quick?"

Helga found herself backing away from the attic door-she had nowhere to hide now. They would find her, wonder what she was doing there. They may do some digging, find out she was a runaway and eventually make her go back to Vermont.

"No, we don't have time-let's just look in the master bedroom and the bathrooms and we can leave,"

Helga almost cried with relief-she was saved momentarily. She stayed in the attic though, just in case they came back-she stayed there, every second making Helga's heart hammer louder and louder-it was so loud, Helga was sure the people in the house would hear it. Minutes went by and when Helga was at the point where she thought they would never leave and she would be stuck in the attic forever. The thought made Helga want to cry until she faintly heard the front door shut and lock and soon after that, cars drive away. Helga felt safe to come down from the attic-she hesitantly pushed the attic door down as it cracked on the floor, making Helga flinch-what if they were still in the house? But Helga heard nothing, so she walked down the steps and closed the attic door. She pressed her ear against the door, listening for anything-all she could hear were the sounds of the city-car alarms, construction, a few airplanes…but nothing came from her actual house. Helga finally opened her closet to discover her room empty-leaving her bedroom, she was greeted with silence. She walked down the stairs and glanced out the front door-in front of her house was another sign-Helga opened the front door, checked to make sure there was no one around before darting down the stoop and looked at the sign. The sign had a large FOR SALE on it, but the difference between this one and the one Helga had thrown away was the fact that it now had a large sticker on it that said SOLD.

Helga felt the blood rush to her ears as she felt her life crashing around her, reminding her how she felt when Alyssa told her she was going to boarding school or when her dad first announced they were moving to Vermont. Helga didn't know what else to do, so she grabbed the SOLD sign and tossed it before anyone could see it-then she went back into her house, knowing that soon, she wouldn't be living there anymore.

Now what?

Helga went into the kitchen and sat down on the counter, nibbling on a granola bar-it only felt like a few minutes, but when Helga glanced at her watch, she noticed it was past nine and that a few hours had gone by with Helga just sitting there staring at the wall. Finally, Helga took a deep breath, feeling deep down she knew what she had to do.

She had to tell Phoebe.

[A/N]: **Okay, I noticed in the months that some people were telling me to publish more chapters, and the fact that I stated that I update often, going no more than a month without updating. I realized a couple weeks ago that what I stated obviously wasn't true. I don't see a reason to give an excuse because it is MY story and I feel I shouldn't have to explain why I don't feel like writing. All I ask is that people please be patient with me-I also just started getting an idea for an As Told By Ginger fanfic, but I don't feel comfortable publishing it right now. I am going to edit the chapter that states I update often, as that isn't the case anymore. I'm on a roll right now so I might write a few more chapters before calling it a day again. The point is, I will update when I update. That and I've been in a creative rut the past few months. But thank you for reading and I hope that you'll keep reading, even though I'm not the best author and it takes me a while to update. Have a good day and God bless. **


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Helga waited a couple more hours to make sure Phoebe was awake before making the trek to her house. She hid her stuff in the attic again and left the house, sticking her key in the front door-Helga fiddled with it before noticing that the key wasn't turning.

Helga pulled the key out and tried again-nothing. Helga twisted and turned as the key wouldn't fit-Helga realized that they must have had a locksmith change the locks while Helga was sitting around staring at the wall; it was the only explanation. Helga just stood there for a few minutes before finally deciding what to do-she didn't want bums coming into the house and stumble across her stuff, so she went back into the house and locked the door behind her. Making sure that all the doors and windows in the house were locked, Helga went to her bedroom window and crawled out, leaving it the only window unlocked. Until she found a place to stay, that would have to be Helga's exit from now on-she would just have to deal with it.

Slightly dreading it, Helga made her way to Phoebe's house, walking along the streets of her beloved town, noting every small thing: the drinking fountain in the park that no one drank out of because dog walkers would let their dogs drink out of them, the cranky jolly olly ice cream man telling kids who didn't have the money for an ice cream to get lost, the antique store that had creepy dolls on the window display stare at Helga as she walked along. Helga wondered how Phoebe would react when Helga told her she was a runaway-would Phoebe tell her to go back to Vermont? Helga didn't care if she would have to leave Hillwood forever though-she was NOT going to back to Vermont-EVER.

As Helga drew closer to Phoebe's house, she was approached from behind by a tall lanky boy who had a real unique smell.

"Hey, Helga," Stinky, who was by himself for once, started walking along with Helga.

"Oh, hey Stinky," Helga said and stopped to look at him. "What's up?"

"Nothing…I just wanted to tell you that you might want to talk to the person who resold your house back to you, because I think people still think it's for sale,"

"What?" Helga felt herself becoming paranoid-how much did Stinky know?

"Phoebe and I were having an early morning tutoring session-we went to go get some coffee when a couple and their baby asked us directions for your house-they said they were thinking to buy it,"

"Is that so…" Helga said. "I'll, uh, let my mom know; thanks Stinky,"

"Sure thing…hey, Helga?"

"What?"

"I just wanted you to know…I know we weren't that close when we were kids, but…if you ever want someone to talk to, I'm willin' to listen,"

Helga paused, staring at Stinky-she had a feeling that a lot of her old friends suspected something was up because she kept constantly avoiding topics. She remembered how Stinky had a crush on her at one point in elementary school and wondered if he still had feelings for her-but Helga shook the thought away, deciding Stinky was probably just being nice.

"Thanks, Stinky," Helga said, smiling. "You're a good friend,"

Stinky and Helga parted ways as Helga approached Phoebe's house-she would have lots of explaining to do. Taking a deep breath, Helga knocked on the door-her dad answered, and then told her to wait while he got Phoebe. A few minutes went by before Phoebe came down the stairs and looked at Helga-the look made Helga realize something.

Phoebe probably knew-how much, she wasn't sure, but Phoebe at least knew she was a runaway.

"Helga…I was actually about to come over to your house,"

"Guess I beat you to it, huh?" Helga said, stuffing her hands in her pockets.

"Come on in," Phoebe invited Helga in, looking nervous as she twiddled her fingers and bit her lip. They went up to Phoebe's room and Helga made sure the door was closed tight before finally telling her.

"You know, don't you?" Helga asked softly.

Phoebe paused before walking over and sitting down on her desk chair. "Yeah,"

"How much do you know?"

"After this morning, I got…curious,"

"You mean suspicious?" Helga asked.

"You'd been here for a week, yet I haven't even seen your mom yet and you refuse to tell me where she got her new job at. Your house is bare-no furniture, no boxes, nothing and whenever anyone asks about your old town, you immediately change the subject,"

Helga paused before leaning against one of Phoebe's bookshelves. "Guess there was room for suspicion then?"

"I did some research…the old school where you lived had a new story a couple days ago-apparently, the standards were really high-if you didn't fit the students or teachers profile, you were bullied constantly. A student committed suicide a few days ago because of this and now the school's under intense investigations,"

Helga felt a small sense of justice bubble up in her, but then felt small dread-Phoebe obviously knew quite a lot.

"You ran away because you were bullied?" Phoebe asked.

Helga thought about it before scoffing. "Honest time, Phoebs…bullying's an understatement,"

"What do you mean?"

Helga approached Phoebe and knelt by her before pulling back the sleeve of her shirt so her shoulder was exposed, revealing Helga's secret-a long scar that was deep for being five years old.

"What…how'd that happen?" Phoebe asked, astonished.

"These kids…they weren't normal, Phoebs," Helga rolled her sleeve back down and began to explain. "These kids were perfect in every way imaginable-grades, hair, faces; everything about them was perfect. And if you didn't fit with the 'perfectness' you would be punished,"

"That's why you were bullied?" Phoebe asked. "You didn't meet their expectations?"

"Not by a long shot," Helga said. "I got this scar after getting the crap beat out of me-not by girls, but by guys, guys who were on the middle school wrestling team and were twice as big as I was. We were in a small alley and I was thrown at a fire escape stairwell-there was a broken iron rod and it punctured my shoulder-my parents wouldn't take me to the hospital, so I had to take myself; I had to get nineteen stitches…that wasn't even close to the worst of it,"

"Worst of it?" Phoebe asked.

Taking a deep breath, Helga told all-about the water being dumped on her in the bathroom, about the dead cat with cruel words carved into its body, about her broken wrist, about how it had gotten to the point where she wanted to kill herself. Finally, she told how fast everything changed the minutes she started acting like a pretty girl.

"Just like that?" Phoebe asked, her face in awe and her lips quivering-Helga swore she saw her glasses glisten. "They accepted you just like that?"

"They didn't really accept me…they did leave me alone though,"

Phoebe just sat there in complete shock before finally hugging Helga so tightly that Helga felt her stiff neck from sleeping on the ground actually straighten itself out. "Phoebe…can't breathe," Helga told her before Phoebe released Helga but still held her hand.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Phoebe said, and began to openly cry, making Helga a little uncomfortable.

"I didn't have your address, remember?"

"You could have come to visit-if my parents knew the circumstances, they probably would have let you stay here with us and go to school here!"

"There wouldn't have been room, Phoebs," Helga said, knowing their house was very small.

"We would have made room," Phoebe said, still crying. The truth was, Helga didn't want her friends to know that Helga had gotten so desperate for survival that she had changed herself completely-but deep down Helga knew that Phoebe already knew this. They were so busy having a 'feels' moment that neither of them heard the doorbell ring-next thing they knew, Phoebe's dad was knocking on the door.

"Phoebe, Gerald and Arnold are here…Phoebe?" Phoebe's dad suddenly looked concerned when he saw that Phoebe's eyes were red.

"We're fine, dad, everything's fine,"

Gerald and Arnold were behind them and Phoebe's dad let them in, keeping the door open behind them. Helga guessed that Mr. Heyerdahl suspected that Gerald and Phoebe might fool around, even with Helga and Arnold in the room.

"Phoebs, babe, what happened?" Gerald went over to Phoebe and put his arm around her.

"We were just having a girl talk," Phoebe said, sniffling.

Gerald looked at Helga. "So I'm guessing you told her?"

Helga paused, looking from Phoebe to Gerald to Arnold then back to Gerald. "You knew too?"

"We saw it on the news this morning," Gerald said. "Arnold talked my mom out of calling the number,"

"The number?" Phoebe asked, looking confused. "Helga wasn't on the news this morning,"

"My school was," Helga said slowly.

"Yeah, but then your picture showed up," Arnold said. "You were reported missing three days ago,"

Three days ago? That meant Helga had been gone for almost six days before her parents raised the alarm! That meant that they didn't really care-who knows what finally made them decide to call the police and report her missing? Helga doubt they actually cared enough to make sure she was safe-maybe one of the neighbors had seen her leave or something and became concerned.

"Missing?" Phoebe looked at Helga. "You ran away without telling your parents?"

"They wouldn't have cared anyway, Phoebe," Helga told her before looking at Gerald and Arnold. "Can you give us a minute alone please?"

"I want them to stay," Phoebe said.

"It's none of their business, Phoebe," Helga snapped.

"We're friends, Helga," Arnold said. "We care about you-we want you to be safe,"

"So, what, you want me to go back to Vermont, is that it?" Helga said, standing up and facing Arnold.

"You're parents are obviously worried-I know things were tough at your school-"

"You don't know SHIT!" Helga yelled.

"Helga," Phoebe said.

"You know what I went through!" Helga yelled at Phoebe.

"It doesn't matter," Gerald said. "You should-"

"It _does _matter, Gerald," Phoebe said. "I was crying before because of the things Helga was telling me about her old school-they would mock her and do horrible things to her because she didn't fit their 'standards'!"

"God, Phoebe," Helga groaned. "Why don't you just broadcast it to the whole neighborhood?"

"You mean you were bullied?" Arnold asked. "Like the student who committed suicide from your school?"

"Worse than that," Helga said. "I knew that student and I tried to warn him-they don't let up on things like that but he put an end to his misery before it got as bad as my…torture had gotten,"

"Why didn't you tell your parents?" Arnold asked.

"They wouldn't have _cared_!" Helga yelled. "I had a rod puncture my shoulder and my wrist broken and both times my mom was too hammered and my dad was too busy working out to take me to the hospital! Do you want to know the truth, guys?" Helga looked at them all, but especially Arnold. "Here's the truth-a little over a week ago, on the day school got out for summer vacation, my parents got into an argument and Bob stated he wanted a divorce. I found two things out that night-one was that the reason we moved to Vermont was because my dad was having some affair with a skank named Ashley. Two, neither of my parents were willing to take custody of me-they started arguing on the reasons why the OTHER person should take me,"

"I'm sure that's not true," Arnold said.

Pissed off, Helga deepened her voice to make an imitation of Bob. "I'm not talking her," Then Helga changed her voice to make it slurry and sound like Miriam. "You don't want full custody?" Then Helga deepened her voice again. "Of course not! You're the mother, you take her!" Helga felt tears stinging her eyes at the words that were about to come because the words had hurt her-hurt her so much that she wanted to just lie on the ground and never get up again. But Helga changed her voice back to Miriam's and said them, her tears revealing how much pain the words had actually caused her. "Well, _I _don't want her!"

Arnold, Gerald and Phoebe stood there in shock and it was a wonder that Mr. Heyerdahl hadn't come up there and demanded what was going on. But Helga didn't care at the moment-she was too bitter and angry to care.

"That's what they said!" Helga yelled. "Those were their e_xact _words! I know because they haven't left my head since then! They buzz around my head like a bee, constantly stinging me over and over again, even in my dreams, never giving me a moment of peace!" Helga felt the poet inside her come out, but she ignored it. "Satisfied now? You can call that number and tell them where I am-just know that I'll be gone before they come to take me back-I am NOT going back to that goddamn town, do you hear me?" Helga's voice raised to a screech as she finally let the words out. "I AM NOT GOING BACK TO VERMONT!"

One minute passed in silence-then two, then three. Helga didn't know how long she stood there, staring at Arnold, Gerald and Phoebe who could not hide their shock. Finally, Phoebe stood up and hugged Helga.

"I'm so sorry, Helga," Phoebe said, crying. "I'm so sorry you went through all that,"

Helga just stood there, letting the words and Phoebe's hug seep in before glancing at Arnold-he wasn't crying, but he looked distraught and Gerald was even glaring at Arnold now.

"I didn't know," Arnold said.

Helga felt her anger disappear and was replaced with guilt for dumping this on them-they didn't have to deal with her problems…

"You couldn't have known,"


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

A half hour had gone by-Phoebe got everyone drinks to calm everyone down though it was a little awkward for Helga; now that Arnold, Gerald and Phoebe knew everything, she felt exposed because they knew her secret. It had really been no secret before that she had problems at home, but now it was clear as day. They knew everything and even though Helga felt better for telling them-like a ton of bricks had been lifted from her shoulders-she still felt like she had just exposed herself naked in front of her closest friends.

Arnold and Phoebe were talking about small things-Arnold's scholarships, like nothing had happened. Arnold would glance at Helga every once in a while and would give her encouraging smiles, like he wanted to say 'its okay, I understand'. Helga gave him a look like 'whatever, I don't care' but the look Arnold gave back would tell her that he didn't believe her. Helga wanted to avoid it, but she felt it was inevitable and it was time to do what needed to be done.

Helga finally stood up and tossed her empty can of soda into Phoebe's garbage can. "I better get going," Helga said.

"Going?" Phoebe asked, shocked. "Where are you going?"

"Don't know," Helga said softly. "I'll figure it out when I get there,"

"What do you mean?" Gerald said.

"It was nice visiting you guys," Helga said, trying to smile, but failing. "Maybe I'll come back before school starts-"

"Come back?" Phoebe said. "You're not going back to Vermont, are you?"

"Heck no," Helga said immediately. "But I can't stay here-that couple who was looking at the house this morning bought it-I can't stay there anymore and I have nowhere else to go. So I guess I'm…moving on…"

"Helga, you can stay with me!" Phoebe said.

"You guys don't have room, and if your parents found out I was a runaway, they would call my parents immediately, same as everybody else here-I have some money so I'll go to another town, rent a hotel and then get a job…I'll be okay, really," Helga tried to sound encouraging, but she really felt like she wanted to curl up and die. She just got back, she felt like she was at home and she had been dreaming about this for years-now she had to leave.

"No!" Phoebe said, and started crying again. "No, no, no, you just got here! You can't leave again!"

"I have to, Phoebe," Helga said. "I don't want to leave either, but I have nowhere else to go and I'm not going-"

"Stay with me,"

That had come from Arnold-he had stood there, looking shocked and was quiet until that moment. Helga stared at him in shock and he looked back at her before blushing suddenly and clearing his throat.

"Uh, I meant…us. You can stay with us-at the boarding house,"

"The boarding house?" Helga asked. "You mean…your boarding house? How much is your rent?"

"Don't worry about that," Arnold said. "We have a few empty rooms right now so you're welcome to stay,"

"That's perfect!" Phoebe said, her tears gone instantly. "You can stay at Arnold's and you can even start High School with us this year! You don't have to leave and you don't have to go back to that stupid town in Vermont, ever!"

"Hold up," Helga said and looked at Arnold. "Look, Arnold, I appreciate the offer, but I can't just live with you guys for no rent-that's not fair to the other people living there and what will your grandparents say when they find out I'm a runaway? Won't they want to call my parents or something?"

"My grandma never remembers the news in the mornings," Arnold said. "Even if she did, she wouldn't remember long enough to do anything about it and if I explain the situation to my grandpa, he'd understand. He remembers your dad-he never did like him,"

"I don't want him to know," Helga said, groaning. "I don't want anyone else to know, this is so humiliating,"

"There's nothing embarrassing about it," Gerald said.

"It is," Helga said. "I used to be the tough girl, no one messed with me, nobody! I had to act like a pretty girl to survive; I have parents who don't even want me! This is so…so…"

"My grandpa will be the last to know then," Arnold said. "After this, nobody else will have to know,"

Helga glanced at him. "Nobody else will have to know?"

"Nobody else," Phoebe confirmed before Arnold had to.

Helga thought about it…it did sound like a good idea. She would have a place to live…she might even have a bed, food that didn't come from a can or a package. Wait, what was she thinking?

"I can't," Helga said. "How much is your rent?"

"You don't need-"

"I want to know," Helga said. "It's not fair that all your other boarders pay rent and I'm the only one who doesn't pay just because I have a rotten home life-how much is your rent?"

Arnold paused. "Our rent is 800 dollars a month, but that's because the people in the houses have full time jobs and my grandma provides cooking-"

"It' doesn't matter," Helga said. "I can't mooch off you guys, it's not fair,"

"You're staying with Arnold," Phoebe said suddenly.

Helga looked at Phoebe, shocked at her determination. "What?"

"You're staying with him," Phoebe looked at Helga with a small glare. "You can argue all you want, but I'll drag you there myself if I have to-I just got my best friend back, I'm not about to let her leave. Go get your stuff from your house so we can get to Arnold's,"

"Phoebe," Helga tried to start an argument but Phoebe wouldn't hear it.

"Don't 'Phoebe' me," she said. "We're going to Arnold's and that's that,"

Helga wanted to argue and wanted to tell her exactly who was in charge, but something told Helga that in this case, Phoebe was in charge. Helga somehow knew that arguing this was pointless so she just looked at Arnold instead.

"I have 175 dollars in cash," Helga said. "Take that as rent until I can get a job-I want to at least give you guys something for a roof over my head,"

Arnold finally consented. "Fair enough-we'll discuss rent rates once you get a job,"

"Fine," Helga said and walked out the door with Phoebe and Arnold.

. . .

Helga, Arnold, Phoebe and Gerald stood in front of Arnold's house-Arnold opened the door as a bunch of dogs and cats, including a pig, came running out of the house, racing past Helga's legs.

"Whose animals are those, anyway?" Helga asked.

"We have no idea," Arnold said as he ushered everybody in. Helga had been to Arnold's house before and it looked the same as it always did-Helga wanted to laugh at the memories of the trouble she'd gotten into in this house. Dropping her pink diary on Gerald's stack of books on the bus, having Arnold's grandpa accidentally take Helga's locket, the voice message she had left on Arnold's answering machine when she was doped up on laughing gas when she went to the dentist-so many memories…and for a minute, Helga felt happy she was living in Arnold's house.

"Wait here for a second," Arnold disappeared into the family room for a few minutes before coming back with a hook full of keys. "I'll talk to grandpa later," Arnold said. "Come on," Arnold led his friends up the stairs into the hallway of bedrooms. "The bathroom's right there," Arnold pointed at a door. "Everyone's free to use it when it's empty and the residents ask that you knock first before entering-I would suggest staying away from it after dinner though. That's when Ernie does his…business,"

"Right," Helga said…she wasn't sure how she felt right now. She felt like it was all just too good to be true.

"Here," Arnold went to a door with a number three on it-he pulled out a key and twisted the lock, revealing the room to be completely empty except for a lone bed on the far side of the room with a window looking out to the backyard. "Every resident gets two keys-one for the actual house and one for your room-if you lose either one, it'll be ten dollars to replace it,"

"Okay," Helga said, walking into the room. All she had was her duffel bag with clothes and money-speaking of which, she pulled out the blanket and pillow she had grabbed at home before she left and put it on the bed before grabbing her money box and pulling what money was left out of there. "I know it's not much…"

"Use that money to buy you some more clothes," Arnold said. "…it looks like you only have three shirts in there,"

"I have eight, thank you," Helga said and pulled bills from the handful of money. "At least take fifty,"

"Fine," Arnold took the five ten dollar bills and stuffed them in his pocket. "Grandma serves breakfast at 7:30, lunch at noon and dinner usually varies from 6:00 to 7:30. There's a specific cupboard that has snacks for the residents, but we had to start locking it because Oscar kept trying to eat it all and wouldn't bother to pay the money to replace it,"

Phoebe giggled at that and Gerald chuckled-was it some kind of inside joke Helga didn't know about?

"If you want a snack, you can ask me or my grandpa-don't ask my grandma because you'll be in a discussion about the dangers of junk food before you know it,"

"What about chores?" Helga asked, sitting down on the bed.

"You don't have to worry about that-I usually do the chores,"

"Then let me do some chores then," Helga said. "It'll be some form of rent-that way I won't feel like I'm completely mooching off you,"

"I can handle it," Arnold said.

"But you said your grandma hasn't been able to do much since her leg's been amputated, right?" Helga asked. "So then let me do the dishes, or clean the bathroom and stuff-it can be considered part of my rent,"

"That does sound fair," Phoebe said.

"Fine," Arnold said. "I'll have grandpa leave a list of chores you can do,"

"Great," Helga said.

"Is that blanket the only blanket you brought?" Arnold asked.

Helga nodded and blushed a little-when she had first left, she thought she was careful and organized but the more Helga thought about it, she realized she was actually rushed and didn't really think much about stuff to bring.

"That's okay-we have some extra sheets and blankets you can use,"

"Hey, short man," Arnold's grandpa had come in and noticed Helga on the bed. "We get a new resident?"

"Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that, Grandpa," Arnold looked at his friends. "Just hang out for awhile-I'll be back," Arnold left to talk to his grandpa and Helga could imagine the words 'please let this girl I knew in elementary school stay here for free because she was bullied a lot in middle school and her parents don't want her-by the way, she ran away from home'.

"Arnold'll take care of it," Gerald said.

"Hmm," Helga mumbled a little but was too distracted by it all to really respond.

"Helga?" Phoebe said and sat beside Helga and took her hand.

"Yeah, Phoebs?" Helga asked.

"I know it's a lot to take in," Phoebe said softly. "I know you feel uncomfortable having this offered to you-you're probably used to fending for yourself often…but I really think this is best for you. I think this is the only way for you to be truly happy again,"

Helga paused before nodding. "I guess you're right…it just…feels so weird,"

"It's okay to feel that way," Phoebe said.

Arnold and his grandpa walked back in.

"Well, I guess you'll be staying with us, Helgen," Arnold's grandpa said.

"Helga," Arnold corrected.

"Right," Arnold's grandpa scratched his head before continuing. "I'll leave a list of chores on the fridge every morning for you to do-I don't care when they get done as long as they're done by the end of the day. And you don't have to worry, the list won't be a mile long-it'll probably only be three chores for you to do. Think you can handle that?"

"Yes, sir," Helga said.

"Good, I'll have Arnold leave you sheets and a blanket that you can sleep on-breakfast starts at-"

"I already explained stuff grandpa," Arnold said.

"Did you tell her about noise violations?" Arnold shook his head so his grandpa continued. "You can't make noise from 10:00 p.m. to 10:00 a.m. If you do, it'll be a strike against you-three strikes will get to either a raise in rent…but in your case it'll just be extra chores. Fair?"

"Fair," Helga agreed.

"Good, you don't have to sign contracts or anything, so I better get back downstairs,"

"Thanks…um," Helga wasn't sure what to call Arnold's grandpa…it felt awkward to just call him Arnold's grandpa…

"You can call me Phil," he said and left.

"Thanks, Phil," Helga said as Phil walked out of the room.

"Why don't we go get some food?" Gerald said. "We'll wait downstairs while Helga unpacks,"

"Good idea," Phoebe said and they all began to shuffle out of the room. "Come downstairs whenever you're ready, Helga," she said and she shut the door behind her.

Helga just sat at the bed before lying down…even though she had been home for about a week…this time, she felt like she was really home- REALLY home.

Helga sighed in content before realizing something and sitting up.

She was staying in the house of the boy she not only had a crush on but was practically obsessed with for most of her elementary school years.

She was staying in Arnold's house.

SHE WAS STAYING IN ARNOLD'S HOUSE.

"…crap," Helga said softly.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

_Helga was back in Dr. Bliss's office-she hadn't been there since she was in elementary school, lying on the couch and staring up at the ceiling covered with blue paint as she opened up her darkest secrets to her old psychologist; Dr. Bliss was really the only person she had felt comfortable talking to, about her home life, her crush on Arnold, everything. Even though Phoebe was her best friend, Helga always thought Dr. Bliss knew more about her than Phoebe did. _

_ Helga glanced over at the big chair from the couch, waiting for Dr. Bliss to ask a question to provoke deeper thoughts and feelings from Helga; instead of Dr. Bliss though, Phoebe sat in the chair, Arnold and Gerald on both sides sitting on the arm rests-each held a clipboard and pen with glasses and looked at Helga with eyes that were eager to know more. _

_ "I did some research…," Phoebe said. "The old school where you lived had a new story a couple days ago-apparently, the standards were really high-if you didn't fit the students or teachers profile, you were bullied constantly. A student committed suicide a few days ago because of this and now the school's under intense investigations,"_

_"What were you doing researching about my home life anyway?" Helga demanded to know, sitting up from the purple couch. "It's none of your business," _

_ "You ran away because you were bullied?" Gerald asked while writing something down on his clipboard. _

_ "So what if I was? Is being bullied such a bad thing anymore? Hell, I used to bully you guys all the time and you turned out just fine," _

_ "You didn't lock us in a bathroom and dump buckets of water on us," Arnold said. "You didn't kill a cat and leave it on our doorsteps and you never would have considered hurting us to the point where you drew blood," _

_ "So what?" Helga snapped and felt herself fume when they all began writing on their clipboards. "What the hell are you writing?! It doesn't matter-I did what I had to do to survive-I'm still here because of that!" _

_ "We're friends, Helga," Arnold said. "We care about you-we want you to be safe," _

_ "You don't know SHIT!" Helga yelled. "Do you want to know the truth, guys? Here's the truth-a little over a week ago, on the day school got out for summer vacation, my parents got into an argument and Bob stated he wanted a divorce; neither of my parents were willing to take custody of me-they started arguing on the reasons why the OTHER person should take me,"_

_ "Then stay with me," Suddenly, Gerald and Phoebe were gone and it just Arnold and Helga-Dr. Bliss's office faded away into the background so there was just the two of them. "Stay with me," Arnold repeated. _

_ Helga paused, looking at Arnold before saying "Okay," softly. _

_ Arnold smiled before his face began to morph into something else-he got taller, his muscles bigger and his hair grayed before Arnold no longer stood there, but Bob. _

_ "It's settled," Bob said. "You're going back to Vermont to stay with me and Ashley-and you can go back to your high school and graduate there and go to college in Vermont," _

_ Helga looked in shock at Bob, realizing what she'd talked herself into. "What? No…no," _

_ "You already agreed to it," Bob's face began to get darker and his smile stretched until it reached his ears, his teeth large showing no gums whatsoever. His eyes grew two times bigger and started to sink into his head. "You're going back to Vermont…you're going back to Vermont," _

_ "No…no, no, no, no, no, NO-"_

"NO!" Helga yelled and sat up.

The first thing Helga noticed was the floor, of all things-the wooden boards with holes greeted her as she realized that she was no longer at Dr. Bliss's office-and that she had fallen out of bed. Standing up, Helga glanced out the window to the backyard to see that the sun was setting as the memories of the past twenty-four hours rushed at her.

The couple buying Helga's old house, going to Phoebe's, telling her, Arnold and Gerald everything that had happened to her…then making the decision that Helga would live at Arnold's house and do chores in exchange for food and a room. Helga unpacking what little she had only to feel exhausted-what was supposed to be closing her eyes for a few minutes on her bed had become almost four hours of sleep that resulted in a nightmare-was Helga ever going to have a decent dream again?

Helga stretched until she noticed a small note pinned to the inside of the door to her room-she recognized the neat scrawl that was Phoebe's.

_Helga,_

_I came to see what was taking you so long, but the past couple of weeks must have been rough on you because you were asleep-Gerald and I decided to head for a movie, so Arnold's in the house if you need anything-try to relax, okay? You're home now…you don't ever have to leave again._

_-Phoebe_

Phoebe's note reminded Helga how much Phoebe really did care for Helga when they were kids, even though Helga bossed Phoebe around almost all of the time. Phoebe really was a true friend-Helga's best friend and for a minute it felt like Helga never moved at all.

A knock on the door interrupted Helga's thoughts and she shook her head, feeling a migraine coming on. "Come on in," she said.

Arnold hesitantly entered the room and flipped the light switch-the only light was the small overhead lamp in the center of the room-it didn't give off much light, but it still made Helga's head hurt more.

"I heard a thump," Arnold said. "Just wanted to check and make sure you were okay,"

"I'm fine," Helga said. "Just had a…weird dream," Helga shuddered, remembering the bizarreness of her dream.

"Yeah," Arnold said. "We would have woken you up but Phoebe said you were probably really tired and we should just let you sleep,"

"Yeah…maybe all I needed was a good nap, eh football head?" Helga asked, the insult rolling off her tongue naturally.

"Probably," Arnold said, the insult not seeming to bother him. "Anyway, I brought you some sheets and a blanket-also, dinner's gonna be ready in a couple minutes-you might want to use the bathroom now, because you won't be able to use it after,"

"Kay," Helga said. "Thanks," Helga still felt a little awkward-Helga and Arnold weren't that close when they were kids, but it seems he got closer to Phoebe since she started dating Gerald. Was she supposed to be his best buddy since he was the best friend of Phoebe's boyfriend? Or because they were technically living together, or because Helga obsessed over Arnold when they were kids…thinking about it just made Helga's head hurt more and she put her hand to her head to emphasize her headache.

"You okay?" Arnold asked.

"I have a headache," Helga said rubbing her temples.

"We have aspirin-come on downstairs and I'll get you some,"

"Kay," Helga said. "Just let me use the bathroom,"

"Cool," Arnold turned to leave, but seemed to think better of it and turned back around. "Helga?"

"What?"

"You don't have to pretend you're somebody you're not here-you can be yourself…what I'm trying to say is…you don't have to worry about being judged. The people here don't exactly have rights to judge anyway,"

"I'll keep that in mind," Helga said and rubbed her arm-though Arnold was trying to encourage her, she still felt awkward…maybe all she needed was time or something. "Thanks Arnold,"

"Sure thing,"

Arnold left and Helga stretched again, feeling a little better after her nap-she remembered how exhausted she felt after getting to Arnold's and she felt like she just needed to close her eyes, even for just a few minutes. But clearly, Helga needed more than a few minutes, because it was apparently time for dinner when it had still been around lunch time when they had gotten to Arnold's.

Helga left her room to see a middle aged man and a smaller guy walking along the hallway.

"You must be the new tenant," the older guy, who looked and sounded like he was from somewhere in Asia, was giving Helga some curious stares.

"Yeah…I'm um, Helga," Helga said.

"Aren't you a little young to be a tenant?" the smaller guy said.

"Aren't you a little old to be having people cook for you?"

The men just looked at Helga before looking at each other-for a split second, Helga was afraid she had overstepped some boundary before the smaller guy looked at her and said "Touché,"

"Oh, leave her alone-go on downstairs," a woman who looked to be around Helga's mother's age approached Helga and put her hand gently on her shoulder. "That's Mr. Hyunh and Ernie-they try to act all critical but they're mush balls at heart-I'm Suzie Kokoshka. I live in room four with my husband Oskar, who you'll probably meet soon enough-you might want to hide your valuables…just a warning,"

"Uh, right," Helga said. "Thanks for the tip,"

"Us girls have to stick together," Mrs. Kokoshka said before heading downstairs. Helga took a few breaths, trying to calm herself before following.

Helga went into the main hall and followed the noise into what was apparently the dining room-a hand full of people were sitting down, while Arnold was dishing out what looked like Mashed Potatoes with something that smelled like beef. Arnold noticed Helga and tossed her a bottle.

"Aspirin-for your headache," he said and put the bowl down and started to head into the kitchen. "What do you want to drink? We've got water, orange and grape juice and strawberry soda,"

"Uh, orange juice sounds fine I guess," Helga mumbled.

"I want some sparkling cider," A man who sounded like he was from Sweden or something was already digging into his dished food.

"We don't have any, Mr. Kokoshka," Arnold said.

"Just give him water," Mrs. Kokoshka said. "I'll have some orange juice,"

"Suzie, why do you get juice but I have to have water?"

Helga wasted time by opening the bottle of pills and dumping a couple into her hand-she closed the bottle and set it on a cupboard, not sure where else to put it.

"You can sit anywhere you like, Helen," Phil said, sitting at the head of the table. "Any chair will do-just stay away from Oskar, he'll try to swipe your food,"

"Oh, why would I do that?" Mr. Kokoshka said.

Helga ignored the fact that Phil had said her name wrong and sat down at an empty chair towards the other side of the table-Arnold's grandma wheeled her way into the dining room with a bottle of ketchup and mayonnaise in her lap-she set the bottles on the table before setting herself at the end of the table and started squirting the ketchup and mayonnaise on her food-the sight made Helga slightly gag a little, but she told herself to be polite-these people were nice enough to give her a roof over her head for little to no money.

"Here you go, Helga," Arnold had come back in the room and poured some orange juice into her glass. He sat down at the chair across from her and poured some orange juice into his own glass as Helga took the aspirin.

"So, this is our new tenant, Helman," Phil said, gesturing towards Helga. "Let's welcome her to our home,"

"Her name's Helga, grandpa," Arnold said-he glanced at Helga curiously, and Helga got the sense that he was wondering why she didn't bother to correct his grandpa for saying her name wrong. The truth was Helga didn't care-she stopped caring a long time ago.

"So," Mrs. Kokoshka said. "You and Arnold used to go to school together?"

"Yeah, when we were kids," Helga said and started eating as everyone else had started.

"What made you come back?" Ernie asked. "And for that matter, where are your parents?"

"Uh…" Helga hadn't thought of a good story yet and she quickly looked at Arnold for help who jumped to cover her.

"Helga…didn't like her old school," Arnold said. "The curriculum wasn't the best, so her parents told her she could come back and go to school here-she's going to have a lot more opportunities college wise that way,"

"Is that so?" Mrs. Kokoshka said. "Have you decided what you want to major in?"

"I…haven't decided," Which was true-Helga had always been so concerned from getting out of Vermont that she never thought about what she really wanted to do with her life. Now that she thought about it, she didn't know what she wanted to do future-wise at all.

"That's okay," Arnold said. "Stinky and Gerald aren't sure what they want to do either,"

"I would have thought Gerald would want to be in the NBA or something," Helga said.

"He was at first, but he said he's not so sure now-Phoebe's trying to help him find his 'purpose' or something like that,"

"Arnold, will you pass the soy sauce?" Arnold's grandmother asked-Arnold handed her the soy sauce and she dumped it on her ketchup and mayonnaise covered potatoes and beef and looked at Helga. "What was your name, dear?"

"Helga," she said.

"Oh, that's right," Arnold's grandmother shoveled some of her odd food into her mouth and smiled with few teeth. "You're that girl who always stalked Arnold,"

**[A/N]:**** *GASP* what could this mean? Did Arnold know Helga's stalkerish tendencies all along?O_O Also, does anyone else think the dream sequence is a little…long? And…weird? Ah, whatever, take what you get in stride, y'all. **


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"You're that girl who always stalked Arnold,"

The mashed potatoes in Helga's mouth went back into her windpipe as she heard the words. She got into a fit of coughing that encouraged Mrs. Kokoshka to lightly pound on her back as Helga took a drink of her orange juice to help save her from choking.

"Stalked?" Arnold looked shockingly at Helga, like she had just had her head chopped off by a random stranger. "Grandma, what are you talking about?"

"Oh, you know as well as I do, Arnold," Arnold's grandma laughed as she took another bite of roast beef.

Arnold looked at Helga, almost like he thought that somehow Helga would know what his grandmother was talking about.

"Don't look at me," Helga said, but could feel her cheeks burning with blushing…how did she know? HOW DID SHE KNOW?! "I don't know what she's talking about,"

"Oh, don't be so modest, Helen," Arnold's grandmother said. "You were quite mad when Moses stole your pencil, so you practically followed him home every day, waiting for the right moment so you could take it back-you never got the opportunity though, so on Christmas night you snuck in through the chimney and planted mouse traps all throughout our house and we know it was you because you left a broken nutcracker to let us know it was you. Oh, what a kick that Christmas was! Jingle bells, jingle bells," Arnold's grandma started singing randomly, making Helga confused, but decided not to question it.

Phil looked at Arnold's grandma and sighed. "Pookie, you're thinking of the Christmas where we had to set up mouse traps because Ernie here thought it would be wise to bring home a pet rat,"

"I didn't know the rat would have babies!" Ernie said.

"I guess that makes sense," Arnold said and looked at Helga with a smile and rolled his eyes as if to say 'grandparents'. Helga wanted to ask if his grandmother was always this senile, but the look Arnold gave back said 'you might as well get used to it-she's always like this'.

Helga smiled and seeing Arnold around his family made her think about her family-Helga rarely saw her grandparents on her father's side and the grandparents on Miriam's side passed away before Helga was born, so Helga didn't really know about senile grandparents. She did however know about her own parents and she glanced at Arnold out of the corner of her eye-she knew Arnold had lost his parents when he was still a baby and it made her wonder if that's why he's so nice to Helga-Helga didn't have parents either, not really…so maybe they had something in common. And Arnold's parents were probably as caring as he is, so it must have been a huge loss for their entire family; Helga wondered if Arnold still felt sad on the day his parents left, like he would every year when they were kids. No matter what the weather was like, no matter what was going on, Arnold would always seem sad on that day and Helga remembered some years he would stay home from school because of it.

Arnold looked at Helga and she looked back at her food-it was pretty much gone and Helga no longer felt hungry.

"Don't force yourself to eat if you're not hungry," Arnold said.

"Actually, I'm still pretty tired," Helga lied-she had taken almost a four hour nap so she still felt restless-but she didn't want an excuse to still eat more, since she wasn't hungry.

"You can go to bed if you want," Arnold said. "I'll take care of the dishes,"

"I want to help," Helga said, now feeling guilty for lying.

"It's okay-you can make up for it tomorrow night…you've got plenty of time to help with the dishes," Arnold smiled and stood up, carrying his, Helga's and his grandparent's plates into the kitchen. Helga decided to take the initiative and left the dining room. She thought about using the bathroom, but remembered Arnold's warning and decided against it.

Helga entered her room but realized she really wasn't tired-checking her watch, she discovered it was still only 7:45 p.m. Not the best idea lying like that, she thought…what had possessed her to do that anyway? Maybe she'd been lying for so long that it just came naturally to her.

Helga went into her room and dug through her duffel bag before finding her pajamas-instead of the cotton pajama pants, she decided since it was warm she'd wear some pink shorts-she shook her hair out of her pigtails and stretched in the room; Helga didn't think to bring any books and she wasn't ready to go to bed yet, obviously. Helga then glanced out the window and noticed the emergency stairs on the side of the boarding house-Helga then thought how some fresh air might do her good and grabbed the room key and house key that Arnold gave her.

Not feeling like running into anyone, Helga crept down the hallway and downstairs until she reached the front door and exited the house quietly-when she was outside, she went to the side alleyway to the left of the house and began to crawl up the emergency stairs; soon enough, she reached the top of the stairs, where Arnold's window was and Helga couldn't help but glance inside and see Arnold sitting on his bed, reading a book-she didn't want him to think she was really stalking him (especially after tonight), so she boosted herself up onto the roof, careful not to attract attention-when she was safely on the roof, she sat on the edge and looked out at the city of Hillwood as the streetlights shined through the night, eliminating almost all the stars in the sky with the brightness of the city. Helga tilted her face back up to look at the moon-she really had missed Hillwood with all her might. And now she could only pray she would never have to leave again.

Helga sat there for actually a few hours, just staring at the city-as it got darker, the city seemed to get more beautiful-or was it just beautiful because Helga was back?

Helga was so distracted she didn't hear the small creak behind her and didn't hear the footsteps until they were right behind her. Immediately turning around, Helga discovered Arnold not too far behind her.

"Ack!" Helga shrieked from shock and felt herself beginning to slip off the roof. She tried to catch herself but it seemed to make her body really want to fall-she almost did until Arnold grabbed her under the armpits and pulled her back up.

"You okay?" Arnold said when Helga sat safely on the roof again.

"Crimeny, don't do that!" Helga said, breathing heavily. "You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"If you fell off the roof, a heart attack would be the least of your worries," Arnold said, kneeling down beside Helga. "What are you doing up here anyway? I thought you went to bed,"

Helga suddenly remembered something-she remembered how Arnold's bedroom was at the very top of the house and was right underneath a skylight-the skylight had a window so if you wanted, you could crawl onto the roof. Helga completely forgot!

"I…was just getting some air," Helga said feebly.

"Avoiding doing the dishes, are you?" Arnold said.

"What? No, of course not! I'm so grateful for the room and food that I wouldn't-"

Arnold held up his hand to stop Helga. "Relax, I was just kidding-I know it's been a rough day for you,"

Helga paused before sighing and sitting on a small box that was on the roof. "What made you come up here?" Helga asked.

"Same thing that made you-needed some air…I know the boarding house can get…weird sometimes,"

Helga shrugged and didn't say anything-Arnold still knelt on the ground before standing up and sitting next to her.

"Hey…I wanted to ask…well, tell you something," Arnold said.

"Yeah?"

"Well…that stuff you said about your parents not wanting to take custody of you…"

Helga felt a small sting-the memory was still fresh in her head and it still made her heart bleed like crazy. "What about it?"

"It's just…I knew you had problems at home when we were kids. You never liked talking about your sister Olga and whenever she was in town, you'd be really mad. I remember your dad was a jerk, but I always told myself 'at least she HAS parents',"

Helga nodded, understanding where he was coming from. "I know I should be grateful I have them, I do; it's just…"

"Let me finish," Arnold said and took a deep breath. "I had a feeling it was bad, Helga…but after what you told me…I realized it was _that _bad...I just wish there was something I could do to help,"

Helga shook her head and felt tears sting her eyes but tried to blink them away. "You can't do anything Arnold…thanks for wanting to help though. It's nice to know people still care about me, even after all the crap I put them through,"

"People have been through worse than a few name calling," Arnold said and put his hands in his lap.

Helga pulled her knees up and rested her chin on them, staring out at Hillwood. "Do you miss your parents?" Helga asked without thinking. Arnold glanced at her, shocked and Helga realized she'd over stepped the line once again. "I'm sorry, that was a dumb question-forget I asked,"

"It's okay," Arnold said softly. "I actually haven't thought about them in a while," Arnold was quiet for a few seconds before starting again. "They left when I was still a year old…I don't really remember them. I guess you can't miss what you don't remember. But I do wish that they would come back…or even if someone found their plane-that way, we'd at least have an idea what happened to them. But that's the thing-we don't know what happened to them. They just…disappeared,"

"I'm sorry," Helga said softly. "Compared to you, I should be grateful I at least had parents,"

"Compared to you, I should be grateful I have some other family," Arnold said before looking at Helga. "Don't you have any family besides your parents and Olga? Where is she anyway?"

"She got married a couple of years ago," Helga said, referring to Olga. "She's in Northern Vermont with her husband, working at some big company and teaching piano lessons on the side,"

"Have you thought about maybe going to live with her?"

Helga remembered a bitter memory and she looked away not wanting to remember.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked," Arnold said immediately.

"It's okay…can I actually tell you? I think I'd feel better if I told someone…"

"Sure," Arnold said.

"…I actually wrote Olga a letter a year ago asking if she would consider having me live with her. Olga and I were never that close, but I knew…or at least thought-she cared about me, so I thought she would be okay with it. But then I got her response," Helga closed her eyes as the memory of her ripping open the envelope, hoping for good news only to be met with crushing disappointment flooded her with misery. "She said she'd had to put up with mom and dad for 18 years before she went off to college-she told me if she had to put up with it, I had to put up with it too,"

Arnold just stared at Helga for a few minutes, in shock.

"I know," Helga said, keeping her eyes averted. "My life's a never-ending soap opera,"

"I'm sorry, Helga," Arnold said. "Not just about your sister…but about your parents, your school…you've been through so much the past years and we just sat here, thinking you had forgotten us,"

"Even if you did know, there was nothing you could have done," Helga said. "Just don't start pitying me, okay? I don't need that of all things,"

"No, I'm not pitying you," Arnold said. "I think I'm just empathetic of your situation…I wish there was something I could say or do to make it better but I can't think of anything,"

"I think listening is enough, Arnold," Helga said. "Will you please not tell anyone about Olga? I feel like my life's been exposed enough,"

"Of course, Helga…I'm going to get to bed now-you should do the same. Good night,"

"Good night," Helga said. "Oh, Arnold?"

"Yeah?" Arnold paused at the window on the skylight.

"If you tell anyone about Olga…I'll rip your teeth out with a pair of tweezers-got it?"

Arnold paused, looking at her before cracking up. "Got it," he said, laughing and holding his sides. He opened the window and crawled into his room-a few minutes went by before Helga saw the light in his room switch off.

Feeling content, Helga stared out at the city, feeling better.

"I guess confession really is good for the soul," Helga said softly and smiled to herself. "It's the new honest me,"

**[A/N]: So? Did that little talk make you feel all warm and tingly inside? ...What? It didn't? ...meh, oh well. **


End file.
